Picco announces new money for medical home care

MICHAELA RODRIGUE

IQALUIT — Ottawa will give Nunavut $1 million this year and another $4 million in future years to run a new home care program, Health Minister Ed Picco announced this week.

The program will allow certain patients to recuperate or receive treatment in their own homes with help from trained family members or neighbours, Picco said.

“If you had terminal cancer, instead of languishing in Ottawa or Winnipeg or Edmonton or Yellowknife, with the training given to a care provider you would be able to convalesce in your home,” Picco said.

The program would also allow some elderly people to remain in their homes longer and maintain their independence.

The program is part of the federal government’s First Nations and Inuit Home and Community Care program, which was approved in 1999.

The territorial government, along with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the three regional Inuit associations, and the Nunavut Social Development Council are now touring each Nunavut community to determine what kinds of home care currently exist in the communities, and how home care can and should be used, Picco said.

Some communities already provide home care, said Konia Trouton, director of population health for the Nunavut health department. This new money will add to that program, she said.

This year’s $1-million cheque from the federal government will be used for planning. Subsequent transfers will be used to pay for wages and training for care providers in the communities.

Trouton says she expects each community to take advantage of the program, but she said how they choose to do so and what kind of training they request will vary.

“In some communities you may have a lot of kids that have special needs. In another community may have mental health needs and another may have a lot of elders,” Trouton said.

New training may be provided to community living workers or family members already in charge of caring for a relative. In other cases, the money could represent a full-time job for someone in the community, she said.

Picco says the program likely won’t relieve Nunavut’s skyrocketing medical travel bill, and he stressed that any patient in need of medical travel would still receive it.

“We want to make sure that the cases we’re dealing with in the home are not acute care cases,” he said. “We haven’t looked at it in terms of cost savings.”

Picco said the NSDC, NTI, and the regional Inuit associations will work to ensure the new Nunavut Homecare Program is tailored to Nunavummiut’s needs.

The federal government approved funding for the Inuit and First Nations Home Care and Community Care Program for the last fiscal year. Nunavut’s portion of the money was not spent before year-end, but was carried forward to this fiscal year, Picco said.