NDP statement on Orchard Villa long-term care home

QUEEN’S PARK — NDP Official Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath released the following statement in response to the City of Pickering’s call for a provincial investigation into the Orchard Villa long-term care home:

“I wholeheartedly support the City of Pickering’s unanimous motion, requesting that the Ontario government launch an investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent deaths at the Orchard Villa long-term care home. I have called for a non-partisan, independent public inquiry into the state of long-term care, the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic within long-term care, and the ongoing role in nursing homes of private for-profit corporations — like the one running Orchard Villa.
71 Ontarians have died at Orchard Villa. The province must do what they should have done weeks ago, and take over management of this home immediately, as well as other facilities across the province that are failing to provide adequate care to seniors and protection to frontline health care workers.

Ontarians deserve answers, and they deserve to have confidence that this widespread preventable tragedy will never happen again.”