NDP plan offers alternatives to nursing home care

If adopted, the Opposition’s plan could take the pressure off hospitals where beds are occupied by seniors whose needs could be served elsewhere.

Nova Scotia now has about 1,400 seniors waiting for space in nursing home. Most are cared for at home by family members.

In an interview, Dexter said most people simply want to live at home as long as they possibly can. The NDP is proposing a self-managed home care allowance, frail seniors’ clinics, and an assistance plan to offset the cost of personal alert programs—all designed to help seniors achieve this goal.

The home care allowance would provide seniors with $500 a month to pay for support services allowing them to continue to live at home. “It might well go to a family member,” said Dexter, “or it might go to a person outside the family, and relieve some of pressure shouldered by relatives.”

According to the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, family caregivers currently deliver about 80 per cent of all home care in Canada.

The NDP is also proposing increased grants for home adaptations that provide accessibility to seniors with disabilities, such as wheel chair ramps and main floor bathrooms.

Day clinics addressing needs like balance and mobility, medications levels and compliance, and nutrition would also be available to seniors. The frail seniors’ assistance program would additionally provide information and counseling to family caregivers.

Dexter said that in British Columbia, where clinics provide the type of preventative care and education he is proposing, seniors are able to stay in their homes about two years longer.

The proposal includes a subsidy of up to $750 a month for seniors whose needs can be better met in assisted living facilities.

The initiative would cost $12 million, adding less than half a percentage point to the current health care budget of three billion dollars.

Nova Scotia is expected to have 155,000 seniors 65 and over by 2011 and 202,000 by 2021, according to the provincial government. The shift in age sectors of the population is taking place across Canada, but is more pronounced in Nova Scotia.