Northern Ontario has not been treated equally to the rest of the province when it comes to home care, said NDP MPP for Nickel Belt, France Gelinas.
“Not all parts of the province are financed equally,” said Gelinas, who is the NDP's health critic. She said the five-day guarantee to receive home care, applied in some parts of the province, has not yet become a reality in the north.
Access to home care is more complicated in the north, Gelinas said, due to the long distances personal support workers must cover to meet with their patients. “In my riding, the people who work in home care put hundreds of kilometres every day on their cars,” she said.
The private sector employs at least 70 per cent of personal support workers, Gelinas said, and some companies do not compensate their workers for the mileage they put on their cars.
The long distances they must cover in Northern Ontario can exacerbate the high turnover rates due to low compensations.
“The government has to regulate that industry,” Gelinas said.
The home care sector was privatized by the Mike Harris government.
“Right now the jobs are so poorly paid that a call at Walmart will pay more than a shift in home care,” Gelinas said.
Teresa Armstrong, NDP MPP for London-Fanshawe, and the party's seniors critic, said during a recent visit to Sudbury that transportation is one of the biggest issues for seniors in the north.
In her riding, Armstrong said, public transit is more accessible than in the north, and essential services are not as spaced out. But in the north, a senior without a driver's licence can lose their mobility.
“We know that despite what the government is telling us, seniors continue to experience problems in accessing the care they need,” Armstrong said.
She said northern municipalities need to make greater investments in public transit to help close the mobility gap with the south.
