Ontario backs off home-care changes in York Region
Health Minister Deb Matthews says seniors and disabled people living in five supportive-housing buildings will continue to get 24/7 on-site staffing, after residents protested
Toronto Star
March 26, 2014
By Theresa Boyle
The province has backed off on pulling home-care workers from five supportive housing buildings in York Region that are home to seniors and disabled persons.
Health Minister Deb Matthews said Wednesday night that the buildings have been exempted from a policy change that would have put an end to personal support workers being available on-site, around the clock.
Residents were fearful they would be left in the lurch if they had a fall or ran into trouble and there was no one on-site to help them. About 100 showed up at Queen’s Park earlier in the day to protest.
“I’m very scared. This is going to put my life at risk because they won’t be there,” said Joe Pearson, a 52-year-old whose difficult-to-manage diabetes has resulted in blindness and amputations of both legs.
For the past 20 years, York Region has staffed the buildings around the clock with PSWs through its $7.3-million Alternative Community Living program, half of which is funded by the region and the other half by the province, via the Central Local Health Integration Network.
But under the province’s new Assisted Living for High Risk Seniors Policy, providers of PSW home-care support must help seniors living in their homes in the community as well as in supportive housing.
Because York Region doesn’t offer that level of home care, the LHIN transferred its financial support to two local home-care agencies that do.
Those two agencies will still take over the service on Tuesday.
Initially, the agencies were not going to staff the buildings with PSWs. Instead, they were going to dispatch PSWs for scheduled visits. If residents ran into trouble and needed immediate help, they were assured PSWs would never be more than a 15-minute drive away.
But residents such as Pearson said that wasn’t enough. He said there are occasions when his blood sugar drops precipitously low, particularly during the night when he is stuck in bed, and he needs immediate help.
Because of the local uproar over the changes, the province has backed off and the five buildings have been grandfathered in to the new policy. They will still have PSWs on-site, 24/7, but they will be employed by the home-care agencies rather than the region.
“Will residents still get that 24/7, on-site care? Yes they will. If they got it before, they will still get it,” Matthews said.
“There are funny dynamics here. I might call them scare tactics,” Matthews said, pointing the finger at Frank Klees, the Progressive Conservative MPP from Newmarket-Aurora.
For weeks, Klees has been railing against the government over the changes in Question Period and did so again on Wednesday.
“We are speaking here about people’s lives. We’re talking about the most vulnerable in our communities. We’re talking about seniors and people with disabilities who depend on these services to live a relatively independent life. This government is taking that away from them,” Klees charged.
Matthews said the biggest disruption will be felt by PSWs employed by York Region who will lose their jobs. They are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which, along with Klees, arranged the residents’ trip to Queen’s Park.
According to CUPE, about 50 York Region PSWs have been given layoff notices. The union said some of the PSWs can get jobs with the home-care agencies, but they’ll have to take a big pay cut.
