[CUPE healthcare list] Home-care system swamped by demand; Wide disparities found across Ontario as 10,000 await services

[Jennifer Whiteside <jwhiteside@cupe.ca>]

Home-care system swamped by demand; Wide disparities found across Ontario as 10,000 await services
Toronto Star 
Tue Dec 7 2010 
Page: A8 
Section: News 
Byline: Moira Welsh and Theresa Boyle Toronto Star 
Janet Tapping is trained as a chartered accountant, but now she's giving speech therapy to her 7-year-old son because he's spent more than a year on Ontario's home-care waiting list.

"I am not a professional speech therapist - I'm hoping the sounds coming out of his mouth are the right sounds," Tapping said.

"My options were to pay for a regular speech therapist, which I can't afford, or stay on the waiting list."

Tapping's son, Jonathan, who has been on the Central Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) list since October 2009, is one of 10,000 Ontarians waiting for home-care services, according to a report released Monday by the provincial auditor general. Jim McCarter devoted a chapter of his annual report to home care, finding the sector is unable to keep up with demand for personal support, homemaking and therapy services.

The sector doesn't have the financial resources to meet demand for personal support and homemaking services, the report noted. These services are often required by seniors and people discharged from hospitals. And a shortage of professionals in occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech-language therapy is resulting in waiting lists.

Ontario's 14 community care access centres are responsible for providing home-care services to more than half a million people who might otherwise be in hospitals or long-term care facilities. Average wait times at the centres range from eight days to 262 days.

McCarter found significant disparities across the province. His report noted, for example, that one CCAC had twice as much funding per capita as another. (The report did not identify the location of these CCACs.)

"The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care recognizes that enhancing home-care services saves money and improves quality of life by allowing people to remain in their homes rather than in hospitals or long-term care facilities," he said.

"However, although home-care funding has increased, funding inequities we've noted in previous audits remain because the ministry is still allocating funding based largely on what it gave in the past rather than on the specific needs of the local clientele," he added.

Natalie Mehra of the Ontario Health Coalition applauded the report, saying it "gives numbers to support what many people across Ontario have been saying."

"Home-care services are inequitable, and many patients who need them don't receive them when they get out of the hospital ...," she said. "This is a service gap that the government ignores at its peril."

Sharleen Stewart, president of Service Employees International Union, which represents most unionized home-care workers, called the auditor's findings the "tip of the iceberg in the crisis that is about to hit us."

The reporters can be reached at mwelsh@thestar.ca and tboyle@thestar.ca

© 2010 Torstar Corporation