
For Immediate Release
January 14, 2025
NL NDP Leader Jim Dinn (St. John’s Centre) says that home care continues to be ignored by government. Dinn is pointing to updated AG report on outstanding performance audit recommendations released yesterday showing that government is failing people who need homecare.
The report shows that 62% of outstanding recommendations made by the AG are over five years old. The most troubling, Dinn says, is the number of unimplemented recommendations regarding health care. The majority of which has to do with the home support program:
“Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services has not implemented eight recommendations (28%), including seven related to the home support program. As a result, serious gaps continue with respect to the timely review of home support service assessments and the monitoring of home support hours.”
“I receive calls weekly from constituents who are having trouble finding home care. The lack of a program causes many families to face undue stress trying to find care in a timely matter. Families struggle while government continues to ignore the growing issues in home support,” said Dinn. “Home care is imperative to keep people in their homes. It will help not only the family, but the overall health care system.”
Dinn says an NDP government would ensure that home care is brought under the public system, be needs-based and provide good, unionized jobs for workers.
“Home care is health care and it needs to be brought into the public system to allow more people in this province to receive care without worrying about the price.
“If we want to continue to highlight the importance of aging in place, what will help more is implementing the AG recommendations when they come to government, not just push a one-time payment of $400 that is supposed to help seniors throughout the winter.
You can read the overview of the report here: https://www.ag.gov.nl.ca/reports/all-reports/
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For further information, contact Stephanie Curran, Media and Communications Officer, NDP Caucus at 330-0328 (o), or stephaniecurran@gov.nl.ca
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