A webinar next week will focus on aging at home.
It will be hosted by the Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health and will take place on Tuesday, June 1st between noon an 1 p.m.
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Alexandrea Peel, Gateway’s Chair of Rural Senior Care, and she'll be talking about how an area, such as Huron and Perth, can be a place where people can age at home.
Dr. Peel says staying healthy at home can be a challenge in the best of times for seniors and the pandemic has certainly added to that challenge.
She notes for some, eventually moving into a long term care facility is a plan in their health care journey but can be influenced by illness, family support and their financial situation.
But for others it is not planned and is something that's done out of desperation because they do not have the supports in their community to stay in their home.
There is also a lack of education when it comes to home care.
“A lot of people don't know what Community Support Service is or what they do and even in hospitals and within other health care organizations, they don't always understand what Community Support Services are offered and what home care services are offered,” said Dr. Peel. “And Home and Community Care would then contract these Community Support Service agencies to do some of that work. The problem is some of these Community Support Service agencies aren't seeing any increases in the payments that they are receiving to deliver this work.”
Dr. Peel points out about 90 per cent of Ontarians have said their choice would be to remain in their home.