Manitobans who manage own home care squeezed by rising expenses, worker shortages
CBC
It's getting harder for Vishno Gupta to hire the home-care workers he needs as a quadriplegic living at home.
The 82-year-old, who needs help with everything from getting out of bed in the morning to bathing and eating due to a spinal cord injury, is one of about 1,000 people in Winnipeg who manage their own home care.
As costs rise, the money they get from the province isn't going as far as it used to, he says.
"With the gas prices … [if] somebody has to spend $10 just to come here and go back, how am I going to pay $20 an hour for two hours?"
Manitoba's self- and family-managed care program, available through regional health authorities, allows people who need home care to act as managers and hire their own workers. The intent is to give them more control over who comes through their door.
The province has set rates for hiring workers through the program — $21.40 per hour for health-care aides, $14.50 for home support workers. Those rates haven't changed since 2012.
They also don't translate directly to hourly wages. People who manage their own care are responsible for paying administration costs — like Canada Pension Plan and workers' compensation deductions.
People who use the program say the money available to them has been inadequate for years. Now, with decades-high inflation driving up costs and a shortage of health-care workers, it's getting harder to hire qualified people.
"It's a shame that we are trying to shortchange the very people who want to make a difference," said Gupta, who has been using home care for six years.
After deductions, people who use the self-managed program are left with about $14 an hour, on average, to pay their staff, said the Independent Living Resource Centre's Doug Lockhart.
"It's almost that they feel disrespected in having to offer that type of wage to individuals — the same wage they've been offering for the last 10 years — and it's frankly quite embarrassing for people," he said.
The centre helps people navigate self- and family managed-care, and runs a program to help people with disabilities train their workers.
"I was at a job fair [recently], and the first question everyone is asking is, 'What is the starting wage?' And when you have to say $14 an hour, it really is not very appetizing for a lot of people," said Lockhart.
Qualified home-care workers are also hard to come by.