While I would agree—I support what you say, Janet—I think where I'm coming from is that obviously those people who are at end of life.... The reality, to put it frankly, is that the older you get, the more chance you have of dying. I'm sure you all know that. It's not something we can pretend isn't going to happen. The preventative piece, I think, is very clear, but we have a population that's living much longer with these chronic illnesses. They will need more supports as they move into their end-of-life process.
I think it is a paradigm shift to get government at all levels to think about how we support people living with these chronic illnesses as they age and how we take it out of acute care hospitals. Acute care hospitals are wonderful when you have an acute illness, but they're no place to be when you're dealing with a chronic illness or when you're at end of life.
We know that 75% of people would prefer to die at home, and “home” could be the retirement home or the long-term care home or the home they've lived in. We need to think about shifting those funds away from acute—trying to fix it—and into supporting people to live and die in their own home.