Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario government postponed its 2020 budget to November. RNAO participated in a virtual pre-budget consultation on October 15 and delivered its fall pre-budget submission on Oct. 16.

The submission calls on the government to:

• immediately heed RNAO’s Nursing Home Basic Care Guarantee call for four worked hours of nursing and personal care per resident day in nursing homes;
• build a comprehensive primary care system that ensures everyone has coordinated care and gets appropriate attention in the health system, so that interventions happen before ailments become acute or chronic;
• deliver home care that enables people to age in place, rather than become institutionalized in nursing homes; 
• proactively reach out to people through a strengthened public health system to ensure they stay healthy in the first place, and to monitor for developing health issues like pandemics.
• work with First Nations to build a health system that meets their pressing and long-term needs;
• start delivering access to safe and healthy housing for all; and
• approve and fund Consumption and Treatment Service (CTS) sites in communities where there is a need and where organizations are able and willing to create the sites. 

To read our full pre-budget submission, click here.