Quebec’s autonomy insurance project not adapted to Nunavik’s communities: health board

Bobby Snowball, president of the Nunavik Elders’ Committee, addresses parliamentary hearings on the autonomy insurance project in Quebec City Nov. 20. (PHOTO FROM ASSNAT.QC.CA)

Nunavik weighed in this week on a Quebec program aimed at helping the elderly and disabled to continue living at home as long as possible.

Faced with a rapidly aging population, Quebec is proposing to create an “insurance plan” to offer its senior citizens less expensive long-term care services at home — rather than seeing them move into care facilities. The same program would also extend to adults who require support for a disability.

The proposed policy, called the Autonomy Insurance project, would allow health care specialists to evaluate someone’s level of autonomy and determine what services would allow them to continue living at home, providing allocations based on need and income.

The Nunavik regional board of health and social services, along with the region’s elders’ committee, told provincial hearings Nov. 20 that while elders support the idea of staying at home as they age, the policy is not adapted to Nunavik’s reality.

Minnie Grey, executive director of Nunavik’s health board, told the parliamentary committee on Health and Social Services that the autonomy insurance project does not take into account many aspects of life in Nunavik, including its high cost of living, limited health care options and housing shortage.

“Our main challenge right now is to plan and improve our existing infrastructure of our general population,” Grey told the hearings Nov. 20. “At this time, we don’t really have any facilities to care for our elders.”

In fact, four communities in Nunavik have elders’ care facilities, with four more planned in the coming years, while there is an overall scarcity of long-term care beds in the region’s two main hospitals.

And the region’s health care needs are already unique given that 34 per cent of Nunavik’s population is under the age of 15, Grey pointed out, while its birth rate is twice that of Quebec’s.

Maintaining qualified staff would pose another challenge under the autonomy insurance project, which aims to cover professional services like nursing, rehabilitation, psychological services along with domestic assistance like housecleaning or preparing meals.

“In order to make this project sustainable in Nunavik there is an urgent need to first consolidate the basic health and social services offered before moving forward,” Grey said in a Nov. 21 press release.

Following Grey’s presentation, Quebec health minister Réjean Hébert suggested there be discussions on how the province can help adapt the project to Nunavik’s communities.

The parliamentary hearing on the autonomy insurance project ended Nov. 21 after three weeks of consultations, the content of which will be used to help draft the project’s bill.

In a Nov. 21 release, Hébert said most of the 61 groups that presented at the hearings were in favour of providing the elderly and disabled with more options.

“The vast majority of groups agree that the status quo is no longer acceptable,” Hébert said. “It’s essential to change the way we do things to create solutions for our aging population.”

Hébert estimates the autonomy insurance would increase government investment in the care of people who have lost their autonomy from about 15 to 40 per cent of overall costs.

Visit the project’s website here.