The latest plan of the Ontario government is to make PSWs employees of the state to deliver home care. We have become a nanny province with the Wynn government getting into the business of providing home care directly, quietly creating a new agency.
Five years ago, I did an extensive review of agency delivery of care, and how bad the actual care was compared to the Internet web site of the CCACs and LHINs propaganda of care for Ontario. This study showed the old 80/20 rule of productivity and costs, and the meagre help for seniors trying to manage their health at home. The least paid and least recipient of care was the little old lady needing care in her home, and the least paid was the PSW in a long line of bureaucrats that were at the trough getting their high wages and benefits, while the PSW and Care Recipient received the least.
This latest announcement, before Wynn pirogues the government, had Health Minister Hoskins escaping to another federal Liberal appointment of Pharma care, while dismantling one bureaucracy, CMHC, and creating a new one with PSWs instead of nurses.
If the doors on this delivery of all publicly funded home care are due to begin this spring, with full roll-out by March 2021, and if this happens, our concern will be for the families that are shouldering the burden of even more shrinking dollars for care, and that, of course, leads to the burden of caregiving for the disabled. Think about this if you cannot afford care and you are disabled. You will have to choose euthanasia. Thankfully, David Hoskins was protected from this scenario, as the United States, in their humanity, provided him with a lifetime of care providers.
About 729,000 people received provincially-funded home care services in 2015-16 delivered by PSWs and nurses. The rising costs, associated with all the agency employees who are not in direct service, leaves Ontario with a budget they cannot supply, and individuals in the agencies are paid enormous fees that Ontario, if they want to be able to offer care for seniors to remain in their homes, need to consider direct care by PSWs as they do in many countries in the world. The micro management of government in Ontario is increasing our costs and creating discrepancies in service.
Let us get these high priced bureaucrats out of business.
