Staffing shortages prompting some Manitoba families to hire their own home-care help
CBC
Joanne Brown hired her own home-care attendants when she felt she could no longer rely on the visits her parents were eligible to get through the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority (IERHA).
Brown, of St. Andrews, Man., moved her elderly parents to an assisted living complex in nearby Selkirk, Man. from Winnipeg so they could be closer to her.
However, she says frequent cancellations and the limited time home-care staff were given to spend with her parents prompted her to change how their care was delivered.
"The home care started getting worse," Brown said. "My mother has dementia and then my father went deaf … I had an incredible problem with constant cancellations, people not showing up."
In Manitoba, regional health authorities (RHAs) are responsible for delivering home-care services with RHA staff members visiting eligible clients. Home-care staff help individuals regardless of age with daily tasks and health supports to help people stay in their own homes longer.
But RHAs across the province are dealing with home-care staffing vacancies that have families such as Brown's seeking care outside the public system. Each of Manitoba's five RHAs use, to some extent, contracted agency home-care attendants to maintain their services in some communities.
"Home-care services are provided in 13 community offices throughout Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority," Tricia Tyerman, the IERHA's director of health services, home care, said a statement. "Presently, only the Selkirk office has contracted agency home-care attendants due to staffing vacancies.
"Agency staff are contracted when we need to maintain service delivery."
As vacancies are filled, Tyerman says, home-care teams modify schedules to address the needs of their clients.
The regional vacancy rate in the region for health-care aides who deliver the majority of home-care services in the region is 17 per cent, according to Kate Hodgson, regional lead for health services in the community and continuing care.
"Vacancy rates vary significantly among the offices that co-ordinate home care service delivery in the region," Hodgson said.
Home-care clients and their families can also manage their own care. Funding is provided to families based on an assessment of needs, but clients or family members have to recruit, hire, schedule, manage staff and do payroll-related tasks.
About 1,500 Manitobans were registered for self- and family-managed care as of Oct.1, a provincial spokesperson said. Home-care services cannot exceed 55 hours of service per week, and the cost of services shouldn't exceed the average cost of a personal-care home bed, according to the province.
When Brown learned that was an option, she signed on to manage her parents' care.