One thousand private seniors’ homes have shut down in the past decade, and Tuesday Quebec announced a new plan to stop the bleeding.
The government will be spending $200 million over five years to help struggling residences provide services to seniors with declining health.
Seniors will often be autonomous when they enter a private residence, but as time goes on their health declines. Suddenly, more care is needed than their residence can provide. Spots in public nursing homes, however, are limited.
“It’s really challenging when a senior’s condition is deteriorating. At a certain point, we cannot keep them,” said Marc Fortin, president of the Regroupement Québecois des résidences pour aînés, the association representing private seniors’ homes (RPA).
Quebec Minister Responsible for Seniors Sonia Bélanger announced the province will devote $200 million over five years to providing a “personalized allowance” for certain seniors homes, to help them offer extra services like feeding, cleaning, administering medication.
“This will reduce the bill for residents for sure, as well as ensuring a predictable cash flow for private seniors residences to pay the staff who will provide the care and services,” Bélanger explained at a press conference.
Private seniors’ homes have faced some serious financial hardships in recent years, with many being forced to close their doors.
“The exploding cost of food, repairs, labour and then, the interest rates that exploded as well in the last few months, you’ve got a perfect mix for a disaster,” said Fortin.
On top of all that, Fortin says ever-evolving government regulations are forcing residences to do pricy but necessary renovation on sprinklers, stairs, walls and more.
“At some point, it just becomes too much and they cannot afford it,” he explained.
The new program will relieve some of the pressure on RPAs and and on the wallets of seniors and their families. It’s starting as a pilot project for residences with 30 rooms or less. The goal is to bring the program to over 650 residences.
“We believe that this will have a positive impact for the administration of these living environments and for the tenants, too,” said Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, president of Quebec’s Golden Age Federation (FADOQ).
“We think that this will help stop the small RPAs from closing.”
The government is also taking steps to make sure costs for certain services are the same from one region to another.
“One RPA may charge $50 per month for medication administration one in other RPA charges $150 for the same services,” Tassé-Goodman explained.
The seniors’ minister said this announcement is just one aspect of the government’s upcoming plan to bolster home care, in an effort to keep seniors at home and out of overwhelmed hospitals.
Just last week Quebec’s health commissioner released a report denouncing the sorry state of home care here.
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