Homecare services in Stratford have been on a starvation diet for several years. Just read OneCare’s annual reports. And while several contractors are busy shuffling their waiting lists; families, caregivers and health providers themselves are consumed with navigating a homecare journey that is rigidly bureaucratic and overly complicated.
As for déja vu? Am I the only one that has watched the Huron Perth CCAC (which came into being in 1998) temporarily merge into the South West LHIN in 2017, which in turn begat the South West Home and Community Care offices in 2021, and now in 2023 is about to be rebranded through the Huron and Perth and Area Ontario Health Team, as a circular exercise.
Not until homecare formally connects with primary care providers and formally links with the hospital’s placement coordinators will we see meaningful progress. How can you convince the taxpayers that returning to a 35-year-old model is called the “modernization of homecare”? Is it really furthering our 22nd-century homecare needs…and potential?
And as for accountability? If you look at the Ontario government’s Financial Accountability Office reports you will be hard pressed to find optimism on the government ability to meet its multi-year homecare promises.
- From 2022-23 to 2027-28, the Province has allocated $21.3 billion less than will be needed to fund current health sector programs and deliver on its program expansion commitments in hospitals, home care and long-term care.
- The Financial Accountability Office projects that the number of home care hours per Ontarian aged 65 and over will be about the same in 2024-25 as it was in 2019-20.
- Even though “in 2021-22, the per diem cost of home care in Ontario was $36, which was significantly less than long-term care at $151 or a hospital bed at $722.”
I’ll say more about this subject in a future issue.