Michele Campeau, left, visits with her mother, Ruth Poupard, 83, at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare where she is recovering from a broken hip, in Windsor, Ont., on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Poupard also suffers from dementia and requires 24-hour care. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dax Melmer
"I'm never paying it because the law is wrong," Campeau said. "It's unfair what they're trying to do to seniors." Hospitals can send patients to nursing homes not of their choosing up to 70 kilometres away, or up to 150 kilometres away in northern Ontario, if spaces open up there first.The last few years have been tough for Poupard. Dementia set in, she underwent a heart valve transplant and survived cancer. She moved in with her daughter, who took care of her and became her power of attorney.
Campeau and her brother decided that they alone would not be able to manage their mother's needs if she returned to live in her daughter's home. If she refused to move her mom into that long-term care home in downtown Windsor, the hospital said they'd begin charging her $400 a day. Campeau said she visited the home and found it "disgusting," refusing to place her mother there.The hospital also charged Poupard a co-pay rate – the rate she would pay in a long-term care home – of $653.20 for 10 days in March before she refused the move into that one nursing home.