Manitoba unveils overdue seniors strategy

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This article was published 22/02/2023 (927 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government plans to overhaul home care, bolster seniors housing, and offer pensioners better tax breaks to make the province a “great place to age.”

On Wednesday, Seniors and Long-term Care Minister Scott Johnston released his government’s long-awaited seniors strategy. The 36-page document contains seven priority areas where the province intends to increase spending, add resources and launch campaigns to support the aging population. The framework focuses on accessible communities, navigation, services, financial security, reducing ageism and ableism, Indigenous engagement, and accountability.

“We intend to improve the experience for every older Manitoban and those who care for them as the strategy advances,” said Johnston, who described himself as an advocate for seniors.

The strategy includes $15.75 million in new spending for home care, housing, and palliative care. Johnston promised there would be more to come.

Self- and family-managed care programs, administered by regional health authorities, will get $12.6 million more in the fiscal year that ends March 31, 2023. The budget for the program will increase by $13.9 million in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

Under the programs, clients arrange their own home care, which the government pays for at a fixed rate. That includes hiring an agency or directly employing their own staff.

“Consultations were quite clear that people wanted to be able to be in more control of their own destiny and be able to ensure that they were able to fulfil their needs,” Johnston said.

The funding will expand the program to an estimated 80 clients and will help the approximately 1,200 clients currently registered in the program with rising costs and to recruit and retain workers.

In the current fiscal year, home care services were budgeted to cost $385.8 million. In 2021-22, the self- and family-managed program cost the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority $28.6 million to support about 980 clients.

Home care delivered by health authorities will be part of future announcements, Johnston said; the strategy calls for a redesign of the home care model to “enhance access, quality, accountability and alignment” to personal preferences.

“Both programs are deserving of further increased support,” he said.

In the coming year, an additional $1.3 million will be spent to expand palliative care services provincewide, with Southern Health best positioned to benefit first, Johnston said.

Habitat for Humanity will receive a $450,000 grant to launch a renovation program for low-income homeowners who need property modifications, such as ramps, larger doorways, and mobility aids, to age in place.

“This is a very good use of taxpayer money,” Habitat for Humanity Manitoba chief executive officer Sandy Hopkins said, adding it will hinge on income. “We have to make sure that the people we help are the ones who cannot help themselves.”

The program will be supported with private donations and will draw on Habitat’s pool of volunteers and experts.

Michelle Porter, a University of Manitoba professor and director of the Centre on Aging, said she is optimistic the strategy will lead to a number of initiatives touching on various elements of aging.

Combating ageism will be foundational to its success, she said.

“If we have an ageist attitude, it’s going to be hard to enact any of these things and really change people’s lives and to improve their quality of life,” Porter said. “We really need to get people thinking about the fact that older people are not other people. They’re just us in the future.”

NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara said the strategy comes too late and only after seniors have suffered under Tory policies.

“They have sold off affordable housing for seniors, cut and privatized home care services, transferred seniors hundreds of miles away from their families for hospital care and actually cut long-term care beds,” Asagwara said.

Johnston said an independent seniors advocate will not be appointed, despite calls from the opposition and seniors groups.

However, an “advocacy and investigative” function will be added to support his office.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca