FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 12, 2006
Hamilton CCAC to cut
service to seniors and housebound to balance budget
HAMILTON – Hamilton’s Community
Care Access Centre (CCAC) is making deep cuts to local home
care services to balance its budget by the end of the
December.
The CCAC told staff that 9,400
units of service per week of care will have to be cut as soon
as possible. A unit can be anywhere from 20 minutes to one
hour of service, depending on level of care. The cut means a
reduction or the elimination of service for up to 10,000
Hamilton patients per month, most of whom are elderly and
housebound. As many as 300 health care workers could also lose
their jobs over the coming weeks.
To expedite the cuts, the CCAC
management has appointed third party reviewers who will not be
as familiar with the patients and their current situation. The
review includes all patients served by the CCAC, including
pediatric and palliative care cases.
“These cuts will affect the
entire health care system in the Hamilton area,” says Ontario
Public Service Employees Union President Leah Casselman. “Long
term care beds are already difficult to find, hospital beds
will be further backed up by the lack of home care, and family
physicians will be backed up seeing home care patients who
have nowhere left to go. This is a disaster. Many seniors will
simply end up sick at home alone.”
The cuts are also bad news for
local home care workers contracted by the CCAC for service.
When the Hamilton CCAC
similarly cut patients in 2001, Visiting Homemakers
Association (VHA) was placed into bankruptcy, leaving 500
workers without a job. The VON also cut 20 per cent of its
workforce at the time, including many nurses.
“While the CCAC may balance its
budget by taking these extreme measures,” says Casselman,
“patients will end up in more expensive parts of the health
care system, costing taxpayers more.”
The cuts are particularly bad
news for personal support services, which help keep seniors in
their homes. The Hamilton CCAC has been wait-listing
candidates for personal support since December, 2005.
OPSEU represents both CCAC
staff and VON home care providers in the Hamilton area.
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For more information:
Rick Janson at 416-443-8888
ext 8383 or toll free at 1-800-268-7376.
