Going once, going twice... Health care giants bid for home care

 Cashing in on need

 Ontario: Primed for costly privatization

 The cost of competition

 Staffing problems

 Out of pocket expenses on rise

 Funding and access cutbacks

 Home care is about women

 The need for federal action

 For-profit home care provision: expanding the market

 Olsten’s shoddy track record

 What is your province doing?

 Corporate classrooms costly...

"Because you’ve got different companies in the same regions, there are situations where I’m in a building seeing someone and down the hall, someone from Comcare is seeing someone. We were both paid to be there. If there was one of us making both calls, we could spend more time with both clients and less time on the road."

Ross Sutherland, Nurse, Victoria Order of Nurses (VON), Kingston ON, CUPE 3932

Cashing in on need

Canada’s aging population, earlier discharge from hospital and a shift in care for people with disabilities from institutions to the community make home care one of the fastest growing areas of the economy. Home care is playing a more prominent role in a health care system under siege, providing everything from palliative care to chemotherapy to house cleaning, seniors’ care and cooking.

According to Health Canada public spending on home care increased at a yearly rate of almost 11 per cent between 1990 and 1998. Total public home care spending now tops $1.2 billion, or 2 per cent of total public health care spending.

Private companies are attracted to the growth potential in the sector and the relatively high level of government funding. Private contractors thrive in situations where assured public dollars fund the private delivery of home care. Currently, over 90 per cent of all agencies providing home care receive some government funding and over half are entirely publicly-funded. The private sector home care agencies would dearly love to expand their share of that market and are finding willing government partners in provinces such as Ontario.