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Quebec to invest $22M in home health care, especially for seniors

Click to play video: 'Quebec invests in home care'
Quebec invests in home care
WATCH ABOVE: The Quebec government announced it is investing more than $22 million in home care. As Global's Raquel Fletcher reports, that means an additional 600,000 hours of work and more money for workers – Aug 24, 2016

Trained home health care workers will be providing services to more Quebec seniors, including house-cleaning, cooking, laundry and running errands.

The provincial government is investing over $8 million to help more people access home care.

“The $8.1 million will increase, by our estimates, the number of people receiving those services by 5,400,” said Health Minister Gaétan Barrette.

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In addition, the health minister said another 90,000 people already receiving home care will have more time devoted to them.

“In one specific example, someone who has two hours a week, that person will [now] have three hours,” Barrette said.

“That’s not insignificant. That’s very significant for that person.”

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The investment comes from five different government ministries.

READ MORE: Quebec to invest over $50 million in home health care

About $12.5 million will go towards training thousands of professionals in the home care field.

“Solving the problems that we have in the health care sector, it’s not specific to one minister,” said Economy Minister Dominique Anglade.

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The ministers admit the money won’t eliminate wait lists for home care services, but they insist it will help to make the services more universally accessible across different regions of the province.

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