Ministers, Make CARP Concerns Your Priority

CARP is taking our advocacy on healthcare reform and elder abuse directly to provincial governments.  In a letter to all provincial Justice Ministers, CARP is urging immediate action against elder abuse and we’re calling for a comprehensive response to help detect, investigate, and prosecute elder abuse as well as provide victim support services. We are urging governments to commit to implementing a comprehensive strategy to fight elder abuse that includes the following:

1. Detection of elder abuse
   1. A duty to report in all long-term care homes supported by enforcement
   2. Stringent protocols and standards of care in long-term care homes to prevent abuse, supported by enforcement
   3. Good Samaritan protection for reporting/intervention
2. Investigation and prosecution of elder abuse
   1. Police resources and training specifically on dealing with elder abuse
   2. Prosecution resources and training
   3. Sensitization of judges to issues and laws affecting elder abuse
3. Support
   1. A national 1-800 line, such as Ontario’s 211, with adequate promotion, funding, extension to remaining provinces
   2. Funding and proper training for the counselors who answer the calls
   3. Shelters for seniors experiencing abuse

CARP has a long record of calling for a comprehensive elder abuse strategy. We are now urging the provinces to act and build on the recent federal government’s measure to increase sentencing for elder abuse convictions as a major first step in concerted legislative and community action to protect vulnerable seniors.

CARP’s One Patient Model of Healthcare

CARP also sent a letter to all the Ministers of Health. Included in the letter is CARP’s One Patient proposal for an integrated continuum of care that takes into the consideration the full spectrum of people’s needs from first diagnosis to the end of life.

CARP’s One Patient proposal is person-centric and takes into consideration the full spectrum of health needs – emotional, mental, social, and physical – from first diagnosis, through acute and long term care, to end of life. This means stable funding from provincial and federal governments and mandatory standards of home care, income support for caregivers, geriatric care, assisted living services at home and in affordable housing, equitable access to decent nursing homes, long-term care insurance system, and quality end of life care. It emphasizes the need for integration, effective navigation, and formal communication so that patients can smoothly go from one stage of care to another.

CARP is calling on Ministers of Health to take action on transforming our health systems into an integrated care continuum for the health of current and future Canadians. Health Ministers know that CARP members are relying on and waiting for provincial governments to set and improve on national standards of care, resolve structural inefficiencies and regional differences, and get health care spending and drug costs under control.

We will report on responses from Justice and Health Ministers and will continue to pressure all governments for a comprehensive strategy against elder abuse and for a patient focused model of healthcare to secure and promote healthy and dignified aging for all Canadians.

July 12, 2013