Great. Thank you, Keith. I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to come here to speak about long-term care. We're quite excited about the fact that the committee is studying this issue, so we are hoping that we are going to be helpful in the remarks that we offer today.
I'll jump right into our home and community care program.
The first nations and Inuit home and community care program was launched in 1999. It's delivered in first nation and Inuit communities right across the country. In terms of first nation communities, it's actually available in 96% of the communities. The services are delivered based on a needs assessment that is done, and there's a range of services that are offered through the home care program to help people who are living with acute, chronic, and complex health issues, so that they can remain in their homes.
The program has a number of key elements that must be delivered in the communities. It's delivered predominantly by RNs, licenced practical nurses, and home health workers. In 2013-14, over two million hours of service were provided to approximately 35,000 clients across 686 first nation and Inuit communities.
While the home care program is to be universal and accessible, there are gaps. The gaps include only being available from Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 5:00. You can imagine a senior living at home requiring services. They might need something after 5:00 at night. That is certainly a demand and a gap.
Like provincial programs, the home and community care program does place limits on the amount of service and the number of hours that are provided to clients. Another gap that we saw prior to budget 2017 was in terms of what were previously called “allied services”, such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy. Typically, communities did not have funding to provide those services. Fortunately, with budget 2017, we saw an investment of $184.6 million over five years in the program. This is quite significant. Communities will work hard to use these dollars to increase the services that they're offering in their communities, increase the number of hours, and offer some of those additional services such as physiotherapy and palliative care.
Brenda is going to talk to us quickly about the assisted living program that she is responsible for.