The City of Toronto has publicly released a report outlining the conditions of long-term care homes in the city.
Mayor John Tory released the report on Monday. It outlines the response by staff prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, its actions during the outbreak, and recommendations on how best to adapt the city's 10 long-term care homes post-pandemic.
Homes in the city are and were in far better shape than many other homes across the province, but there were 16 recommendations made in the report to further improve things, including:
Tory joined Newstalk1010's The Rush on Monday, and said he wanted this report to be completed well ahead of any provincial report.
"When I asked for it in April, my main reasoning was that we were of course going to have some kind of a broader provincial review which hasn't been started yet, but I knew it would be let's say a year away before we saw that report," Tory said. "I wanted to know what lessons were learned during the pandemic so far."
Tory says even City homes that were better run than some of the worst-hit homes across the province, there was a tragic loss of life.
"I just wanted to make sure we had all of that on the table and then once the report was written and given to me with recommendations in it, I thought it should be made public so that everybody could see what we were told and what we had done."
Implementing all 16 recommendations will cost roughly $14 million.
Tory says he wants to make sure these homes are prepared if and when a second wave of the virus hits.