Home Care Ontario is calling on the province to embrace home care as the solution to hallway medicine.
That’s good news for home care patients like Novelette Munroe, who told CBC Toronto the system hasn’t been able to fully meet her needs for some time now.
Munroe lives in Scarborough and has Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa, a skin condition that requires full body bandages that need to be changed every other day to avoid infection.
“It’s been really difficult to find enough nurses to do my care,” she said. “I don’t have anybody coming in on the weekends at all because there’s not enough nurses available.”
Munroe’s 70-year-old mother helps her fill the gap, but they both worry about what will happen when that’s no longer an option.
Staffing is one of the main issues that Sue VanderBent, Home Care Ontario’s CEO, hopes to address with additional government funding.
“Home care is a very, very important part of keeping the whole system of health care healthy,” she told CBC Toronto.
A new campaign led by health-care advocates is calling on Ontario to invest more in home care. They say expanding the province’s home care offerings will help reduce hospital wait times and long-term care waitlists. CBC’s Tyler Cheese has the details.
“There’s 45,000 people waiting for a bed in long-term care in Ontario right now … It’s sad to think that all happened because we didn’t put in the home care that they really needed,” VanderBent said.
“It’s shortsighted and it isn’t good care for the people of Ontario.”
Home Care Ontario is calling on the province to significantly increase the number of visits and hours of home care by 10 per cent a year for the next three years — roughly 16.5 million hours of additional care.
“I think that’s exactly what’s needed,” said Munroe. “There needs to be more investment.”
Experts in the field, including Sinai Health’s Dr. Samir Sinha, agree.
Ontario’s senior population to grow significantly
“The real challenge we have right now in Ontario is that we just don’t simply have enough home care to meet the current demands,” Sinha told CBC Toronto.
“Fifteen per cent of our hospital beds are occupied by people, many of whom want to go home with home care, but they can’t,” he said.
“Tens of thousands of Ontarians are waiting to go into long-term care homes because there’s insufficient home care available.”
The Ontario Liberals are demanding the province’s auditor general investigate a critical shortage of medical supplies. CBC Toronto reported last week that home care patients across Ontario have been facing shortages of crucial equipment for about a month. But the problem still isn’t fixed. Lorenda Reddekopp has the latest.
Sinha says he feels the province has not kept up with home care investments at the rate it should have, especially considering the province’s rapidly aging population.
A Home Care Ontario report from earlier this year projected Ontario’s senior population will grow by 650,000 over the next five years.
“My advice to the premier and my advice to this government has been to continue to increase our investments in home and community care,” Sinha said.
When those investments are made it gives Ontario residents more options to be able to get out of hospitals more efficiently, he said, and it also helps free up spaces in long-term care facilities for those who really need it.
Province says it’s already invested
In an emailed statement to CBC Toronto, Ministry of Health spokesperson Hannah Jensen said, “Our government recognizes that modernizing and expanding access to home and community care, for patients and their caregivers, is a key part to providing more people with the right care in the right place.”
Jensen outlined the government’s previous investment of $1 billion to expand the delivery of home and community care services, which is in addition to investments made to increase personal support worker (PSW) wages and funding for PSW students.
“That has helped us to boost our capacity,” VanderBent said, but a new approach is needed that makes home care a priority.
“We can’t keep doing the same old things and expect a different solution,” she said. “More hours of care would look after a tremendous number of Ontarians.”
