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Home care cuts in Durham, Scarborough, Northumberland, etc.

The Central East Community Care Access Centre (covering Durham, Northumberland, Peterborough, Haliburton, and Scarborough) reports a drastic decline in the amount of services it provided in its most recent annual report.

There was 199,000 fewer "units" of personal support provided than in the previous year. The personal support budget was cut almost $4 million.  Nursing was harder hit. Nursing visits were reduced by 250,000 "units" and  2,000 fewer clients were served.  The visiting nurse budget was cut by over $8 million -- a 19% cut. Physiotherapy service units were cut 28%.

Overall, Central East CCAC expenditures were cut almost $12 million, while its revenue actually increased over $7 million. In 2009-10 there was a significant deficit, so these cuts may have been made to make up for CCAC's debt.

With no guarantee of home care, the care you receive is driven by budget rather than need.
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Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 16, 2011 at 11:12 AM

    Most interesting statistics. Is it possible to develop the same type of report on Niagara?

    Thanks to you also for your continuing updates. It’s always most informative reading and gives us all a window on what is the realistic situation in Health Services Provincially...often not a very pretty picture.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LeftwordsOctober 16, 2011 at 4:29 PM

    The 14 CCAC’s have widely varying annual reports, which makes comparisons difficult. And the publicly reported province-wide data only goes up to 2009-10.

    Nevertheless, I believe the Central East experience is somewhat special. For example, the Hamilton, Niagara, Haldimand & Norfolk CCAC does report a significant increase in expenditures in 2010-11 (year ending March 31). In fact they report an increase of 5% over 2009-10 (and a 6.4% in 2009/10 over 2008/9).

    How much service this provided, I am not sure -- Doug

    ReplyDelete
  3. HomecareOctober 31, 2011 at 2:41 AM

    I was looking for this kind of website.I have been looking the World Wide Web for this information and I want to thank you for this post. It’s not easy to find such perfectly written information on this topic.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 7, 2011 at 2:56 AM

    Thanks for the interesting report Doug.
    I am also wondering in proportion, how much of this money goes to pay the salaries of CCAC staff!? I am a 'front line' worker at the bottom of the totem pole.
    Just sayin
    Brenda

    ReplyDelete
  5. LeftwordsNovember 7, 2011 at 3:00 PM

    I don't think the CCAC staff are overpaid Brenda. Probably comparable to hospital wages. If we do get rid of competitive bidding / compulsory contracting out, those wages will likely help bring up the wages of PSWs, RN, and RPNs now providing home care front line services. Thanks for the comment!

    ReplyDelete

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