Province to Boost Care For Seniors
Prince George, B.C.- The Province is investing $500 million over the next four years as part of a Ministry of Health action plan to improve care for seniors , including increasing direct-care hours for seniors in residential care.
The year-over-year funding increases will enable each health authority to reach a consistent average of 3.36 direct-care hours per resident day at all residential-care facilities. This was a key recommendation of a recent review of residential-care services by Parliamentary Secretary Darryl Plecas, and has been recommended by Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie
To meet the goal, health authorities and private contractors will have to hire about 1,500 more staff including health-care assistants, nurses, occupational therapists and physiotherapists. The plan also calls for specialized community service programs to be introduced throughout B.C. to support seniors with complex medical conditions such as frailty, dementia, multiple chronic illnesses or end-of-life care needs.
Included in the $500 million is $275 million to be provided over the next four years for home- and community-care services as part of the recent health funding agreement with the federal government. Over and above the $500 million, health authorities also will continue increasing their budgets for home and community care over the next four years, reaching approximately $200 million above current levels by 2020-21.
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Christy Clark doesn’t care until an election and make no mistake she will lie to get elected, she has done it before.
“I think British Columbians don’t want to see those huge [hydro] rate increases, they want to know we are working hard to try and reduce total costs for everybody.”- Christy Clark, Globe and Mail, May 24, 2012
In the last year, a massive 28 % hydro hike
“Work more closely with farmers, ranchers and agricultural organizations to preserve agricultural land and encourage farming.” – Clark B.C. Liberal campaign pledge, Country Life B.C., May 2013
Legislation tabled that removes protection from 90 % of B.C. agricultural land and encourages development over farming.
“My recipe is that we grow a thriving private sector.” – Christy Clark, The Northern View, Sept. 19, 2011
B.C. is third worst in private sector job creation since the premier made that promise, and B.C. has actually lost 4,300 jobs over the last year. 11,411 people left B.C. over the last 2 years.
“Debt Free B.C.” – Clark campaign bus slogan, 2013
Debt has risen by $16.5 billion since Christy Clark became premier – faster than under any premier in B.C. history. By 2017, the debt will rise to $70 billion – the highest ever in B.C.
“We’re going to have to make sure that we get on a different footing with [teachers].” – Christy Clark, Vancouver Sun, Apr. 14, 2011
B.C. Supreme Court found that not only did Premier Clark’s government set out to provoke a strike, rather than bargain in good faith but they spent $7 million in legal fees only to find that the Supreme Court rules both pieces of legislation unconstitutional.
These were numbers in 2014
Excellent research and presentation of the facts anniemartin!
After reading the article what I picked up on was this section; “Included in the $500 million is $275 million to be provided over the next four years for home- and community-care services as part of the recent health funding agreement with the federal government.”
Does this not mean the province is investing only $225 million to boost senior’s care, with the other $275 million coming from the federal government? If that is the case, then is it not a bit disingenuous of the BC Liberal Government to state it is investing $500 million into seniors care over the next four years?
it is amazing , since the last election the Liberals have been howling about how broke they are , but a couple of months before election they seem to have a bottomless bank account.
Would have been nice to have seen some of this “magic money” over tha last 4 years.
Of course they aren’t telling us that if they aren’t elected none of this will happen.
They also aren’t telling us that our taxes and rates for everything will skyrocket even more to pay for it.
While this is certainly good news, especially the increase in direct care hours, there are some points in this article which make me suspicious.
It says that some of that money will go to private contractors. Why private? We have public health care in BC, why are we supporting private companies? Private care is more expensive than public care, in my experience.
It is going to take 4 years to get all this done. Just in time for another election.
Increasing the number of physiotherapists and occupation therapists is very needed as there is a huge shortage. However, the government will need to increase training spaces for these highly sought after health professionals and it takes more than 4 years to train them. So far, the Liberal government has refused to fund more training spaces so it will be more than 4 years until we see an increase.
Lots of smoke and mirrors here and a ploy to make us vote Liberal. Not this girl, I can smell a rat here. I’ll vote orange.
Had enough of election promises that never materialize.
No mention of money going towards food or nutrition.. anyone of you go to any seniors homes and check out what they say is food. It’s horrible…they should serve the same food to our MPs and MLAs…that may wake them up
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