Central East Community Care Access Centre Official Defends Service

An article in the Voice on January 14th 2010 titled “Alzheimer’s Rates Could More than Double in Thirty Years” detailed the debilitating disease and the client care offered for patients and caregivers in Haliburton County. The article elicited a response from Gail Scala, Director of Communications at Central East Community Care Access Centre. Comments were made by Haliburton health care professionals who stated to the Voice “in the last year the Haliburton Access Centre amalgamated with other areas such as Durham and parts of Scarborough. Scarborough had a large debt so in turn there had to be a cutback in services and
there are now waiting lists for most services provided by the Access Centre, whereas before they had no waiting lists.”
Scala’s response to the comment that ‘Scarborough had a large debt’ was that, “This is untrue as is the statement that the Haliburton Access Centre amalgamated in the last year. Our Haliburton Branch has in fact been a part of the Central East CCAC for the past three years. The one part of the statement in the article that is correct concerns our waitlist but the reason attributed to it is incorrect. In the past three years, the demand for CCAC services has increased dramatically particularly in the number of high acuity clients that are being referred from hospitals for home and community services. At this time, these clients are a priority for our services as we attempt to support the provincial effort of assisting hospitals in our region deal with the pressure they are experiencing in their emergency departments and with their Alternative Level of Care designation challenges. In short, clients are being discharged from hospital into the community earlier and in a more acute condition, therefore requiring greater levels of services from the Central East CCAC. Because of the increased demand for our services and because as a government funded organization we have an obligation to live within our means, over the past year we have had to implement waitlists for some services for clients who do not have high needs or who are not at a high risk.”
In a separate conversation Scala told the Voice that “we also make sure we provide referrals to the community service support organizations for those clients who we have had to waitlist so that they become aware of services in the community they can access to fill the gap.” One service they refer clients to is Community Care Haliburton County which provides services such as transportation, light housekeeping, a friendly visitor, house cleaning, yard work etc. Scala also advised that the Information and Referral department can refer clients to Rest Assure
Respite and Eldercare Service which helps with numerous services such as grocery shopping, light housekeeping, personal support services etc. Scala noted that “this is a service out of Lindsay which also covers the Haliburton area.” However calls to the Rest Assure Respite and Eldercare Service told the Voice that they wouldn’t be expanding to the Haliburton area until at least the Spring. But they have recently opened a respite home in Lindsay that clients can travel to although this stirs up further issues of transportation etc. Central East CCAC provides the names of some of their contracted service providers such as the Red Cross and Paramed who clients can choose to hire privately. They provide online and telephone information and referral services from anywhere in the province by calling 310-
CCAC. Scala further states “essentially we have had a waitlist for personal support work services in place over the past year. The waitlist was introduced to address the significant increase in referrals from hospitals due to the success of the alternative level of care and emergency department initiatives being rolled out by the province through the Central East LHIN.” Moreover it’s important to address what is being done to reduce the waiting list times. Scala comments that the Central East CCAC is “trying to address the increased demand for our services
by looking at ways in which we can be more efficient, for example best practices in programs such as wound care, reviewing our medical supplies and expenses and potentially putting in Alternative Care Settings clinics.” According to Scala, “While our first priority is always to our clients we also have a fiscal responsibility to work to balance client care with our fiscal responsibilities. In order to balance out
our service provision, we have had to waitlist some of our clients who are at lower risk than others. We use a provincial standardized priority rating tool to assess the needs and risk factors for our clients. When accessed the low risk patients are referred to community agencies. The fixed budget has to provide to the greatest need. We don’t put people at risk; it’s not our mandate to do that.” Health care professionals in Haliburton County who provide services and help for clients however are still finding difficulties with gathering help and support for their clients.
One health care professional recently told the Voice, “We have one client who wants to keep his wife at home as long as possible, but did not get any homecare. He requested personal assistance with bathing which is a justifiable reason for having homecare. However because she is not on the waitlist for long term care he doesn’t qualify. This is the whole reason for homecare, to help keep people at home and out of LTC. Now it is a requirement for care. Another client was getting
overnight support because he is palliative but because he is living longer than thought those hours are being cut back. One client had to wait a while to get a raised toilet seat because of the waitlist for an occupational therapist. This put her at risk of falling.” Budget issues and volumes of clients that the Central East CCAC deals with, some 30,000 people, on a daily basis, has clearly stretched their means. At the time of amalgamation, January 2007, the former Haliburton, Northumberland and Victoria CCAC did not have a waitlist. However Scala adds that “some access centres handled demands differently, they didn’t always call it a waitlist. It doesn’t matter if they had one or not, we have a much greater demand on our services than we did five years ago but people don’t realise that.”
Overall some clients are still waiting for services and measures must be put in place to ensure that all clients, high or low risk are given the care that they need.