Mr. Speaker, the government will often talk about the need to increase productivity in this country. We would absolutely agree. If it is interested in increasing productivity, one of the measures it might want to look at is the kind of support it provides to caregiver families, because families who are having to look after aging parents are having to take time off work when mom or dad needs to go into the hospital or get to a medical appointment. They are reducing their work hours because they simply do not have the funds or resources available to utilize services such as respite care. We know it is far more productive and efficient to keep seniors in their homes longer. Providing home support to seniors actually affects the acute care system because there are many seniors taking up acute care beds because they cannot stay in their own homes. Therefore, we could actually improve economic productivity by looking after the caregivers. We could reduce health care costs by taking seniors out of the acute care beds.
There are a lot of answers out there if the government would only pay attention to the seniors who brought forth some very good suggestions as solutions.