Calling it an ”unprecedented and egregious deprivation” of seniors’ rights and freedoms, advocates are taking the Ford government to court over Bill 7 also known as the More Beds Better Care Act.

As of yesterday, elderly patients began facing $400 a-day fines if they refused to be transferred to a nursing home not of their choosing.

The Act permits hospital patients to be moved to a temporary long-term care home as far as 70-kilometres away in southern Ontario and 150-kilometres in the north until a bed becomes available in their preferred home.

But the Ontario Health Coalition is taking it to court in hopes of getting the law struck down.

”This is, in our view, a really hideous piece of legislation,” says Natalie Mehra, executive director of the coalition.

The government has said the law will free up high demand for hospital beds.

Mehra disagrees, adding it will not fix the ”large systemic problem” of bed shortages and instead, will put seniors’ health and well-being at great risk.

”This law cannot solve the hospital bed crisis.  It can only bread misery upon misery,” says Graham Webb, executive director of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.

”This law will tear people apart.”