Veterans Affairs Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay, good, so that money is right in the long-term care for the 7,000.

I want to get back to what my colleague Madam Sgro was talking about earlier with respect to home care. On this slide here, is the home care there the personal care?

[Carlos Lourenso]

Home care is kind of a generic term that refers to all of the services somebody would get in their home. When you talk about home care, we're actually splitting it out here into separate elements that constitute home care. So when somebody's getting home care, a portion could be housekeeping, a portion could be groundskeeping or assistance with their yards, a portion could be personal care or access to nutrition.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

So you don't specifically knock out home care; you lump it in with housekeeping and all that as well.

[Carlos Lourenso]

It's a generic term that's used across the industry, so home care refers to a program in different provinces. Within that program, there are different elements of services. Our home care program has housekeeping, groundskeeping, personal care, access to nutrition, and so forth.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay. So you have 96,000 clients under this home care, let's say, and they can have up to $8,000 worth—

[Carlos Lourenso]

It goes to $9,000.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Out of that 96,000, what's the average they're getting in home care?

[Carlos Lourenso]

In terms of the overall services in their home. I think it is $2,800.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

That's what you said: $2,800. How many are actually getting on the upper end of the $8,000? If you're averaging it out, are you just averaging out how much money you're spending? I'm kind of curious, because you say that you can go to $8,000, but how many cases are actually getting that much home care?

[Carlos Lourenso]

I'd have to get that information for you. I don't have that here, but it is an average nationally.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay. We'd like to have that. We're just trying to get a better understanding.

Looking at your long-term care, in your slides here you're telling us that your expenditures and/or your clients are going down in regard to your long-term care?

[Carlos Lourenso]

We're saying that our client totals are going down. The numbers of clients are decreasing.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay. Would you be forecasting to spend more money on long-term care clients in the future if your client base is getting older? I'm missing something here.

[Carlos Lourenso]

Based on our current forecast, we expect that our long-term care clients have already peaked in terms of the maximum uptake and that we're sliding down the other side of that peak. We wouldn't expect that long-term care would cost us more in the future than it costs now, based on our current projections.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay.

Judy, do you have anything?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

The Gerontological Advisory Council issued a report in 2006 that recommended significant changes in the way care is provided to elderly veterans. Has there been any increase in terms of home care provided in light of the recommendations by the advisory council? After that report was announced, were there any changes made in 2007-08?

[Adam Luckhurst]

I think it's fair to say that the report from the Gerontological Advisory Council was quite broad in its scope and talked about a whole range of elements, not just the veterans independence program. Obviously, we looked at that report and considered the full range of issues that it raised for us, particularly in light of the highly credentialled membership of that advisory group. I think it's fair to say--and maybe Carlos could comment about individual impacts on VIP--that within the existing authorities we have, we've already moved to look at a number of different changes, I guess, that were reflected in that report.

For instance, Carlos talked about how we brought together long-term care and VIP in a management perspective. That's all about bringing that continuum of care much more to the forefront ,so that we get the better flow-through of services and programs to veterans who need that sort of support.

We've talked a little about case management. I guess part of what the report was saying around the way we case-manage is about making sure that we look much more broadly at the full range of services that are available so we can best meet a client's needs. There has been a huge amount of work done within the department in regard to looking at its case management processes so that we can much better get the flow-through from client needs through a process of looking at the full range of service delivery options out there, options that VAC is responsible for, that the provinces are responsible for, and that community organizations have responsibility for, so we can better get a package of services that meets the needs of the client, the veteran, at the end of the day.

Is there anything you wanted to add about the VIP, Carlos?

I think it's more a flavour of how we're moving forward overall, about bridging the gaps between the different programs, which can either add to or take away from the impact, depending on the way you change some of the interfaces.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Luckhurst.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Have we received this report of the Gerontological Advisory Council? I don't recall seeing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We received it in the 39th Parliament. For any member who would like a copy, we can have the clerk dispatch one to you post-haste.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Are there 500 pages or what?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

No. I don't remember it being that large.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

It's not too big?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It's about 60 pages.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

All right. I certainly would like to receive it.