14283 Letters sent via the new EasyMail!

Elder Care

05 Jul 2021 Respectfully Submitted Palliative Care Policy Report: Executive Summary

Posted at 18:41h in Elder Care, Euthanasia 0 Comments
0 Likes

Executive Summary Palliative care is holistic, person-centered care for people facing life-limiting illnesses or disabilities. Palliative care neither hastens death nor unnaturally prolongs life. Instead, it focuses on giving patients their best possible quality of life despite illness or disability. The Canadian Institute for Health Information estimates that up to 89% of Canadians could have benefitted from palliative care prior to death – almost everyone whose death was not sudden or unexpected. Despite this great need for palliative care, only 30% of Canadians who need it have access to palliative care, and...

Read More

18 Jun 2021 Respecting Seniors Beyond Senior’s Week

Posted at 11:25h in Blog, Elder Care 0 Comments
3 Likes

By Levi Minderhoud   The first week in June every year is Senior’s Week in British Columbia. As proclaimed by the province, one of the purposes of Senior’s Week is to recognize that “seniors are a diverse population within a society that supports its members throughout the life continuum, and recognizes individual rights to dignity, respect, autonomy, and choice.” This recognition is more important now than at any time since the proclamation of this week almost two decades ago. In the past 15 months, our most vulnerable seniors living in long-term care homes...

Read More

16 Jun 2021 New Respectfully Submitted Palliative Care Policy Report

Posted at 12:18h in Elder Care, Euthanasia 0 Comments
0 Likes

ARPA Canada's newest Respectfully Submitted Palliative Care Report has just been released! You can read the text of the report below or view, download, and/or print a pdf of the policy report here.   When a medical team seems to have exhausted all treatment options and a terminal diagnosis is given, a physician will too often tell a patient, “I’m sorry, there is nothing more we can do for you.” The doctor then refers the patient to hospice or palliative care, which the patient enters with the mindset that nothing can or...

Read More

26 May 2021 Called to Care Campaign

Posted at 13:34h in Action Items, Campaigns, Elder Care 0 Comments
0 Likes

Over the past year we have been reminded of our Christian calling to care for our elders. We have also seen how this calling can be combined with political action, as long-term care is getting increasing political attention. When COVID-19 struck, long-term care homes in British Columbia were hit hard, exposing deadly flaws in how we care for seniors and bringing long-term care increasingly under public scrutiny and control. The provincial NDP and the federal NDP have issued calls for all care homes to be permanently taken over by the provincial...

Read More

14 May 2021 Ontario Long-Term Care Commission Recommendations Mirror ARPA Priorities

Posted at 12:56h in Blog, Elder Care 0 Comments
0 Likes

By Anna Nienhuis The Ontario government created a COVID-19 Long-Term Care Commission in the summer of 2020. This commission was directed to research and report on the failures that led to a ravaged long-term care system in the province, and provide recommendations to prevent such an outcome in the future. The report of the commission was released in April, and, as we recently released our own policy report on elder care, we were very interested to see the recommendations. While critics rightly continue to call out years of government avoidance and care...

Read More

05 May 2021 Ontario Bill 203 – More Than a Visitor

Posted at 12:50h in Bills and Motions, Elder Care 0 Comments
3 Likes

COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on congregate care settings, not just in terms of the rapid spread of the virus but also in the banning of visitors, including those who had been active participants in the care or support of a loved one. While exceptions have been made, the ability to visit and care for loved ones in congregate care settings has been severely hampered. A new bill introduced by Ontario NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky is looking to fix this and to set up the province for a better response...

Read More

25 Feb 2021 Webinar: Elder Care and Christian Political Advocacy

Posted at 14:46h in Elder Care, Events 0 Comments
7 Likes

Topic: Elder Care and Christian Political Advocacy Co-Host: Word and Spirit Institute Date and Time: March 13, 10 AM PST | 1 PM EST Covid-19 has revealed existing gaps in elder care in Canada, and also created new ones. We will discuss the Canadian elder care context, lay out a biblical perspective on eldercare, and explain how to engage in advocacy on this issue as a Christian. Register for the webinar! Need help with registration? Watch this tutorial video. ...

Read More

30 Nov 2020 New Respectfully Submitted Elder Care Policy Report

Posted at 13:11h in Elder Care 0 Comments
0 Likes

ARPA Canada’s newest Respectfully Submitted Elder Care Report has just been released! You can read the text of the report below or view, download, and/or print a pdf of the policy report here.   In 2016, Canada’s senior population (those aged 65+) exceeded the number of children (under the age of 15) for the first time in history.[i] By 2025, the proportion of seniors in the Canadian population is expected to double from where it was in 2015.[ii] Canada has had a fertility rate lower than replacement rate for over 40 years...

Read More
elder care in Canada

20 Oct 2020 Fully public long-term care is not ideal elder care

Posted at 01:12h in Blog, Elder Care 0 Comments
0 Likes

by Anna Nienhuis A BC NDP government will move to an entirely public system of senior care if elected, leader John Horgan said. The British Columbia provincial election is coming up on October 24, and after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed many deficiencies in long-term care facilities, this is a key issue for all parties to address. As home care services improve and our senior population increases, people age at home for longer and so often require high levels of care when they enter long-term care. But is full government provision of...

Read More

03 Jun 2020 Canada’s lack of strategy in targeting COVID-19 led to unnecessary crisis in long-term care homes

Posted at 16:01h in Blog, Elder Care, Family 0 Comments
2 Likes

By Anna Nienhuis Long-term care facilities house some of our society’s most vulnerable: those who need help eating, using the bathroom, or simply turning over in bed. The fact that some of our elders are facing neglect and abuse from those meant to care for them incites justifiable outrage. We need to ask what can be done to improve long-term care and assisted living. But we also need to ask how our governments’ (federal, provincial, and municipal) responses to COVID-19 contributed to this. Long-term care homes were known to be high risk Outbreaks...

Read More