REGINA – Saskatchewan is spending more on home care so it can spend less on hospitals, said health minister Lorne Calvert.
The province will spend $20.3 million more on rehabilitation and home care, services that allow people to be cared for in homes rather than in hospitals, Calvert said. Five million dollars were added to the 1994-95 budget and another $15.3 million was announced for the 1995-96 spending year.
Home-care charges will be reduced by 17 percent and more emergency home care will be available. Maximum charges for home care now range from $57 per month to $345.
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Providing emergency home care will save the health system money, Calvert said. Previously, when someone was treated in a hospital’s emergency department, they were often not allowed to go home because they required somebody around to ensure they were OK. Now, in every community in the province, Calvert said, home-care workers will be able to quickly respond to short-notice calls.
Many costs to families caring for ailing members will now be borne by the government, Calvert said.
“This is the most comprehensive package of options and services on a community and home-care basis that you’ll find anywhere in Canada,” Calvert said.
Called an admission of guilt
But Progressive Conservative health critic Don Toth called the new spending “simply an admission of guilt” that the New Democratic Party government’s health policies are flawed. When it was closing rural hospitals it said it had to do it to save about $20 million per year, he said. Now it has found $20 million to spend.
“Why did you have to cause so much pain in rural Saskatchewan just so you could make an announcement like this in an election year?” Toth asked during question period in the Sask-atchewan legislature.
Saskatchewan has closed or radically reduced the services provided by 52 rural hospitals and killed hundreds of jobs in rural Saskatchewan, Toth said. Calvert said additional home-care funding will create 460 jobs.
Pipestone health district chair Alvin Gallinger said the new funding is exactly what is needed.
“When we did our own needs assessment these are the things we identified,” he said about the new services.
Calvert said the new home-care provisions would not be used to push people out of hospitals. Gallinger agreed, saying: “we don’t envision anyone going home from special care homes to be looked after at home.”
By using health care, families will be able to shuffle off much of the strain of caring for ill relatives, he said. Because of this, families will keep relatives home longer.
“What happens usually is caregivers play out,” Gallinger said. “They need a break, and that’s why respite beds and day-care programs for adults are so important.”
