Home and community care funding less than promised

The announcements of new "home and community care" funding (which started last week) continue, this time for the Ottawa area.

Home care activists

First the good news. The $7.15 million announced for the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) amounts to 3.74% increase over the CCAC budget set out in 2011-12 Champlain LHIN performance agreement. The Hamilton-Niagara CCAC increase announced last week was 3.25%. So this is a little higher, albeit short of the 4% home and community care funding increase promised by the government.

Moreover, the overall announced increase of $11.1 million falls well short of the 4% increase for home and community care announced by the government.

If you add together all the items in 2011-12 Champlain LHIN accountability agreement that easily fit in to “community and home care” (i.e. the CCAC, Community Support Services, Assisted Living Services, Community Health Centre, and Community Mental Health line items), the total is $357.2 million.

The $11.1 million total increase equals a pretty miserable 3.1%. Contrary to the government's suggestion, that is not going to offset the squeeze on hospital and long-term care services.

This will not even keep up with population growth, aging, and inflation cost pressures.

Notably, the total Hamilton-Niagara home and community care announcement came in higher -- with their $14.7 million (government) funding increase equal to a total 3.79% home and community care increase.

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