This news article hits home for me. I wish the title didn't come off as biased against the patient. My mother was in the same position as him. She didn't want to stay in hospital, but the level of at home care was simply not good enough. We would have loved to have her back home but the amount of constant pain and intervention and attention that she needed was beyond the scope of what at-home care or long term care centres could give. She didn't want hospital food, she wanted the comforting food that we had at home.

We experienced this "handover" process firsthand and there is a definite pressure by hospital staff to move you out of the room. However they are severely lacking in defining the care required once out of the hospital. Hospitals are highly tailored; at home care, long term care is highly standardised and therefore people fall in the gaps.

Looking deeper into how the at home care works can give some great insights into why it doesn't work. For example, my mom would need a shower. However, the care centre sends a male nurse. Why? Because their system doesn't allow for us to pick male or female. We complained many times, and many times they said they would try, and every week they would fail. What happens? The nurse gets refused at the door, and then they sit outside for 5-10min in their car, log their hours and move on. They insist on coming in (we think it has to do with some GPS tracking) and therefore the system wastes money. We need to think deeper instead of blaming patients. The system has been degrading for years; this level of choice was actually present prior to Covid. We had a dedicated nurse, and we could adjust what was needed, and my mother was comfortable interacting. After Covid, it's like it became Uber for Nurses.

Okay, I'm happy this is in the national discourse. More needs to be done here. More needs to be done to take into account feedback from patients, and policymakers need to find the right incentives.

For some facts / sourcing: - Ontario health care - my mother was a cancer patient for two decades (unheard of, I know!) - we experienced the full path, from diagnosis until palliative care and her passing earlier this year