For-profit nursing homes inferior -- New Study

A new Canadian academic study has examined publicly available data on complaints about long term care homes for the elderly, comparing for-profit homes with not-for profit homes.

Complaints are one way to measure the quality of the different types of homes.

The report notes that while "studies conducted in the United States have demonstrated an association between for-profit ownership and inferior quality, relatively few Canadian studies have made performance comparisons with reference to type of ownership."

The study concludes:

Compared with for-profit chain facilities, non-profit, charitable and public facilities had significantly lower rates of complaints in Ontario. Likewise, in British Columbia’s Fraser Health region, non-profit owned facilities had significantly lower rates of complaints compared with for-profit owned facilities.

Most complaints were related to resident care. Complaints were more frequent in facilities with more citations, i.e., violations of the regulations governing a home, (Ontario) and inspection violations (Fraser Health).

Recently the Toronto Star revealed some serious concerns about abuse in nursing homes in Ontario.

The study examined 604 facilities in Ontario and 62 in the Frasier Valley (BC). The entire study can be found by clicking here.

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