Ontario is launching an action plan to respond to the growing needs of the province’s aging population and provide seniors with better access to health care, quality resources and improved safety and security.
The Action Plan for Seniors builds on the recently released highlights from the report Living Longer, Living Well by Dr. Samir Sinha. Using a cross-government approach, the plan draws on new and existing programs and initiatives aimed at ensuring that seniors and their caregivers have access to the services they need, when and where they need them
The plan is designed to:
– provide more home care services by expanding personal support worker services through community support agencies;
– create a one-stop information source for seniors’ services online at ontario.ca/seniorsand by phone at 1-888-910-1999;
– enhance elder abuse prevention training for community agencies; and
– implement a wandering prevention program to help families living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
Linda Jeffrey, minister responsible for seniors, said Ontario’s Action Plan for Seniors is part of the government’s plan “to ensure that seniors and their families have access to quality services and supports in order to lead healthy and independent lives.”
She added, “What is best for Ontario seniors is best for Ontario. Together with seniors and their families and caregivers, and our community partners, we will make Ontario the best place in North America to grow older. Ontario’s Action Plan for Seniors provides Ontario’s seniors with the information that they, their families and caregivers need to make choices that will help seniors feel safe and supported, and to remain healthy and independent for as long as possible,” Jeffrey added.
Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Deb Matthews stated, “Supporting the independence of older Ontarians requires an all-hands-on-deck approach, across all sectors, and including partnership between families, care providers and government. By working together, we can provide seniors with the care they need to live long, active and healthy lives.”
The ministry notes that by 2017, for the first time, Ontario will be home to more people over 65 than children under 15 and the number of seniors in Ontario is expected to more than double by 2036.
The text of the action plan acknowledges “The province we live in today was shaped by it’s oldest citizens. The province our children and grandchildren live in will have been shaped by this generation. We must make it a province that values the contributions that seniors have made and values the contributions they have yet to make.”
The action plan contains new initiatives designed to promote better health for Ontario’s seniors.
Noting that falls constitute one of the leading causes of preventable injury in seniors, the government plans to increase the number of exercise and falls prevention programs throughout the province, “ensuring that Local Health Integration Networks and public health units are able to provide a range of programs for seniors.”
The plan recognizes that seniors recovering from illness or injury sometimes need the short-stay services and atmosphere offered by long-term care homes, without needing to be admitted to one of these homes permanently. There are currently some long-term care homes in Ontario that offer “assess and restore” services through the Convalescent Care Program to help recovering seniors return home.
As part of the action plan, the province plans to expand these “assess and restore” services, designating 250 more short-stay convalescent care beds in long-term care homes and will continue to look for ways of expanding the program in the long-term care, community and hospital sectors.
Patients who have recently been discharged from the hospital also benefit from follow-up home visits, which help them stay healthy and avoid hospital readmission. Under the plan, starting in 2013, primary care physicians will be encouraged to provide about 30,000 more house calls than the 228,000 currently provided. They also plan to expand house call services to include other health providers, such as nurse practitioners and other health care professionals.
The plan points out a “Hospital at Home” model of care is becoming increasingly popular in other jurisdictions. The model avoids the need for hospitalization by moving the care into the patient’s home. This promotes “increased patient satisfaction, reduces treatment complications, increases provider work satisfaction, and reduces pressure on the acute sector as a result of fewer patients waiting for hospital admission from emergency departments,” the government states.
“We will provide more care at home across the province through innovative models such as the Hospital at Home program and help our hospitals and emergency departments become more senior friendly.”
A “wandering prevention” program, designed to deal with concerns faced by the families of people with Alzheimer disease or related dementias about the risk of seniors going missing will be rolled out in phases beginning in 2013.
“Due to changes in the brain, once-familiar surroundings may no longer be recognized, and people with dementia can often become lost without warning,” the plan notes
This program was announced in May 2011, and is being developed in partnership with the Alzheimer Society of Ontario and Ontario Police College.
Other health initiatives addressed under the plan include an increase in the number of active living fairs and social and recreational programs; more stringent fire safety standards for retirement and long-term care facilities and re-introducing legislation to give employees up to eight weeks of unpaid, job-protected time away from work to care for a family member with a serious medical condition.
