BY EDITH PERRY
GUEST OPINION
I have written before about my concerns regarding the P.E.I. government cutting back funding to home care and now information is emerging that it is considering privatizing that service.
We know that there are already private for profit businesses offering assistance in one's home, which includes nursing care. Not a real stretch to see where government would want to go because it already relies on private for profit seniors and nursing homes.
Witness the shortage of affordable housing for seniors and other low income Islanders because government has throttled back on building any for years. They prefer to enter into agreements with private developers. Oversight and waiting lists are problems the Auditor General pointed out earlier this year under this arrangement.
This past summer I benefited from five months of nursing care regarding an emergency surgery incision that took a long time to heal. Because it was through the public-funded Home Care Service Program, I was able to be in my own home all that time and didn't have to pay for it, except of course through the taxes I pay.
As well, I did not have to be hospitalized for weeks so this too was much less expensive to the taxpayer. An additional bonus was that I was not exposed to diseases one usually contracts in hospital settings.
Then a reliable source told me that promised money in the home care budget had been cut back.
Already some of the home care nurses were part time and it became evident they were understaffed. So one can well imagine the fall out when their budget got cut and unexpectedly so.
Now a reliable source says government plans to privatize all government public home care services. This means: 1) much lower wages for qualified nurses, 2) less of them, 3) other cuts that businesses do to ensure a profit, and 4) less quality over sight. Studies prove this time and again.
Government officials: Are there plans to privatize home care on P.E.I.?
- Edith Perry of Millview is a community activist and has represented the Women's Institute of P.E.I. on the Island's Seniors' Secretariat.
