The Ontario government is creating a new provincial agency that will handle the assigning of home care workers to patients who are qualified for the help.
Nickel Belt MPP and NDP health critic, France Gelinas, confirms that the Wynne government is set to take over the co-ordinating of personal support care workers that go to people's homes regularly for in home care.
“We are talking about the people who provide services like help with bathing, light housekeeping, and respite for family caregivers.” said Gelinas. “Patients get comfortable with their preferred psw’s and rather than having someone new come to the home every week, they want their favourite person. This new agency will try to make that more possible."
Some private companies that now provide that service are worried the province will be cutting home care agencies out completely.
Gelinas added that “the new agency better be lean when it comes to administrative costs, because you cant’s have some administrator earning 200-thousand dollars, and the psw’s making 14 bucks an hour. That would be insulting.”
The Ontario Health Coalition likes the idea, and says it’s been advocating for such a program for years.
However, it wants more information on the plan.
"The devil is in the details," said Ross Sutherland, chairperson of the Ontario Health Coalition. "If the government is planning public home care, this is great news. If they are planning to somehow have a public agency compete with the private corporations in home care, it will not help."
Indications are the new government agency will begin operations in the spring.
