8. Help Older Workers to stay Employed: accelerate and expand the skills development and job matching programs to ensure continued employment and employability
9. Help Employers to Keep Older Workers: improve workplace protection for older workers, including accommodating caregiving responsibilities, health plan coverage, enforceable anti-ageism standards and incentives for innovative management practices that remove barriers and take advantage of the knowledge and experience of the older worker
Invest In Health and Wellness
Irrespective of the economic crisis, health care continues to be a daily concern for the whole population and while few would argue for massive increases in public spending at this time, there is an urgent need to re-align health care dollars to maximize our investment in the health and well being of all in this province.
The 45+ demographic, like everyone else, has been forced to take increasing responsibility for their own health and well being. They are also shouldering obligations to look after their parents or spouses. Home care and caregiving is the major financial and health care challenge for this generation. One in five Canadians is a family caregiver to some degree and their contribution in unpaid labour has been estimated at $5 billion nationally.
These are people who have paid taxes all their lives for a public health system and they expect it to be there when they need it most. CARP recommends that the Newfoundland and Labrador government:
11. Family caregivers: work with other provinces and the federal government to adopt a National Caregiver Strategy that includes financial supports, workplace protection and integration with the formal Health Care system;
12. Long Term Care: develop a strategy to deal with those on waiting lists, which should include adequate funding for home care, house calls, supportive housing with onsite support personnel, and stricter enforcement of standards so that funding in substandard homes is reallocated to those who provide the best quality of care and meet the promise of a Home Away from Home.
13. Pharmacare: work with other provinces and the federal government to adopt a universal public drug plan to replace the expensive patchwork of private and public plans in this country. We recommend a national formulary to cover the full cost of essential drugs, with decisions on what drugs are paid for based on independent evaluation of safety, effectiveness and value.
14. Oral Health: increase access to dental services for seniors living in rural/remote long term care. In this province, 21 percent of those with annual incomes less than $30,000. have dental insurance. We have the lowest rate of oral health specialists in the country with 32 per 100.000 while the Canadian average is 58 per 100,000. Similarly, the number of dental hygienists here is 15 per 100,000 while in the rest of the country it is 75 per 100,000. More to the point, in 2003, 57 percent of seniors in Ontario consulted an oral health professional while in Newfoundland and Labrador only 18 percent did so. These statistics are startling and show just how far behind we are I this province.
