Dr. Carolyn Bennett & Dr. Betsy McGregor listen to a participant in Peterborough.
On Wednesday morning I hosted a roundtable in Peterborough on the important role caregivers play in seniors’ healthcare with Dr. Betsy McGregor, our Liberal candidate for Peterborough Centre, and Dr. Jenny Ingram, an accomplished local geriatrician and healthcare innovator.
We were a group of 30 – many of us healthcare professionals and advocates for our growing senior population – who came together to address the challenges that can accompany providing long-term care and caring for a family members at home.
Currently, nearly 3 million Canadians provide care to a family member at home, totalling between $4 and $6 billion in unpaid work per year. Increasing numbers of Canadians, known as the “sandwich” generation, are caring for aging parents while still supporting college-age children.
Dr. Carolyn Bennett and Dr. Kirsty Duncan at the roundtable in Toronto.
These caregivers need more support.
Participants made suggestions on how the federal government could help care givers, such as through improved tax benefits, changes to the EI system, and new programs to provide support for family members providing care. Many of these suggestions echoed the Liberal commitment to offer better support to caregivers.
Some of the event’s most inspiring moments included hearing about the success of programmes like SMILE (Seniors Managing Independent Living Easily) that the Victorian Order of Nurses provides for $2000 per year per senior, as well as their respite program that operates seven days a week.
Dr. Hedy Fry also hosted a roundtable on home care in Vancouver
While we met in Peterborough, my Liberal colleagues have also been holding similar meetings in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver yesterday and today. Liberals are reaching out this week to hear from Canadians on their home care experiences, and to acknowledge the important role caregivers play in our families and in our society.
As Dr. Betsy McGregor told the Peterborough Examiner, “These are the invisible champions in our community.”
Carolyn Bennett
Dr. Carolyn Bennett is the MP for St. Paul’s and the Liberal Party’s Health critic. She can be reached at Bennett.C@parl.gc.ca
