Provincial NDP Fighting to Save Tilbury's Only Long-Term Care Home

The provincial NDP is calling on the provincial government to deny an application to relocate Tilbury's only long-term care home.

According to the NDP, Arch Long Term Care LP has applied for a license to move Tilbury Manor Nursing Home out of the community to amalgamate it into a larger facility in Belle River. 

Essex MPP Taras Natyshak says the move would be devastating to those involved. 

"[It would be] Really disrupting their continuity of care, the care they receive in the community and the support that they receive from their families that live nearby. So we definitely don't think that's in the best interest of those residents," he says.

As a for-profit company, Natyshak admits that Arch Long Term Care LP is within its rights to move, which is where he says the problem lies.

"We have a system that is profit motivated and we know when profit and the bottom line are the metric for the operation," he adds. "It means that hours of care get cut, services and quality of care gets cut."

If the company were to get approval for the move, Natyshak says about 75 residents and their families would be impacted.

"Not to mention the economic hit that a small town like Tilbury would take if you take 75 people out of that town," he says. "And that's a lot of support and jobs that are associated with caring for those folks and just massive disruption. It's just not fair to have had this thing pulled out from underneath them."

Natyshak believes notification was only sent out in late May and says even municipal councillors in the area were surprised. He calls it an inadequate time frame to adjust to such a change.

The public was given until July 4 to comment on the application to close and move Tilbury Manor Nursing Home beds into its Belle River facility.