Читать книгу Making The Right Move - Gillian Eades Telford - Страница 24

This long-term program may also be called home support, home care, continuing care, or community care. To qualify, you must be assessed by a nurse, social worker, physiotherapist, or occupational therapist. Most in-home support programs use homemakers with special training or resident care aides or certified nurse aides to assist elders with personal care such as bathing, dressing, and grooming.

Home care is usually free if you do not have much income; otherwise, payment is on a sliding scale depending on income. The assessors from the long-term care program in the continuing care division of the health unit look at your last income tax return to determine how much you will be asked to pay. If you have adequate income, you will have to pay well for the services you receive. Many private agencies that are not contracted to the regional health board charge less to clients for homemaker services than government-supported agencies. In the United States, home care may be covered under Medicare Part B or another private insurance plan, but certain conditions apply.

In-home care provides care appropriate to your needs as decided by the case manager. You are assigned a worker for a specified number of hours a day or week. Because of health care cutbacks, this service is often rationed in many communities, and is typically designed to enhance and complement the support you receive from family and friends. You can often purchase more hours of service from the agency that supplies your worker.

The regional health boards usually contract with an agency to have them provide home care. The agency may be either for profit or nonprofit, and there is no guarantee that you will get the same person each time. Although these agencies bid for government contracts at the regional health board level, no specific standards of care exist. So the quality of staff may vary from poor to superior.