Whereas seniors, families and seniors organizations have been advocating to improve access to public home care services and supports to assist seniors to live at home, in their communities, longer and to delay or prevent premature admissions to public long-term care facilities; And whereas finances can become an impediment to access the required home care services such as housekeeping, more frequent bathing and meal preparation necessary to age in place, and community programs that have been designed to try and meet seniors needs are unable to fulfil the increasing demand: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM ask the Province to eliminate financial and accessibility barriers by investing in more publicly owned and operated and not-for-profit home care services and social supports required to age in place, and by further investing in publicly owned and operated and not-for-profit long-term care to ensure seniors are well supported in the continuum of care.
Ministry of Health Through Budget 2024, government is investing 227 million over three years to improve publicly funded home health services delivered by health authorities, including home support and professional services nursing, occupational and physical therapies, social work. Work is underway to improve the quality, responsiveness, and overall accessibility of home health services through the hiring of more front-line service delivery staff; expanding service availability and hours of coverage throughout British Columbia; expanding the scope of home support services to provide more help with everyday living needs for seniors of greatest need; and providing more robust care management, so individuals have more contact and support from the care team. Home health professional services can be accessed at no cost. For other home health services requiring client co-payment, such as home support, the majority of individuals see their co-payment reduced or eliminated entirely. Individuals may also apply for a temporary rate reduction to enable access to services. Concurrently, increasing investment in Community-Based Seniors Services CBSS is critical to the Provinces plan to support seniors to remain physically active, socially connected and engaged, and to be as resilient and independent as possible. Budget 2024 invests 127 million over three years, to stabilize and expand high-demand services like Better at Home, which complement health authority home health services by providing seniors with non-medical support, such as light housekeeping, grocery shopping, and transportation to medical and other appointments. Better at Home participants pay for services on a sliding scale, based on their income, with many participants fully subsidized. Targeted funding is supporting waitlist reduction for housekeeping services so that more seniors can get the help they need to remain living at home. The BC government has invested in the development of Long-Term Care LTC capacity, including renewal and expansion. Since 2017, there have been 37 LTC development projects approved that will yield 2,152 LTC replacement beds and 3,436 new LTC beds in BC when all the projects are completed. Since 2021 there have been 13 projects completed, providing 736 replacement beds and 686 new beds. These developments have occurred in urban and rural settings, providing much-needed LTC capacity in Northern Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, Interior Health, Fraser Health, and Island Health. Through these investments, the Province is continuing the important work to provide high quality health services and supports BCs seniors.