Canada is becoming an increasingly elderly country.

It is estimated that by 2036, the number of Canadians aged 65 or older will nearly double, making up 25% of the total population.

This is expected to place an increased financial burden not only on Canada’s health care system but also on the home care industry.

Many elderly people will reach a point where they require an extra level of assistance on a day to day basis.

Sometimes this can be instigated by an accident or a prolonged illness, and sometimes it is just that they have become frailer with age.

And with the increasing demands of everyday life it is often not possible for family and friends to provide the kind of full-time companionship an elderly person living alone may need.

The Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) provides the solution to this increasingly common situation, allowing an elderly person or persons to remain safely in their home with companionship and care.

Live-in caregivers typically work full-time hours and reside in their employer’s home. They provide assistance with mobility, personal care, medication reminders, run errands, and perform light housekeeping.

The cost of a live-in caregiver’s wages can be offset in part by the room and board an employer will be paid by them in turn, so a live-in caregiver is designed to be a financially viable option for families.

Over a long term, a live-in caregiver is also a much less expensive option than prolonged hospital stays or a permanent move to an elderly care facility. Economically it is in the country’s best interests to support in-home care for senior citizens.

The LCP is also beneficial to the live-in caregiver (a temporary foreign worker) who, through living in their Canadian employer’s home, is able to become settled here much faster and grow accustomed to the Canadian way of life. It is a program that works extremely well to integrate foreign workers to the country. 

A Canadian person’s life expectancy is currently the highest it has ever been and our elderly population is one of the healthiest. With this trend expected to continue, this means that in the future elderly people may not require the full breadth of health services.

Nevertheless they will still need some form of assistance and this kind of in-home help cannot be met by the current support systems that are in place. Providing a good level of consistent care is also not only vital to an elderly person’s quality of life, but can help prevent them from becoming so debilitated they eventually need to be moved to a hospital or elderly care facility.

Most importantly, many elderly people simply wish to remain in the comfort of their own home and there should be services in place which allow them to do so.

 

Manuela Gruber Hersch is Austrian by birth and Canadian by heart and an avid traveler. Her daughters are tri-lingual English, French and German. Manuela loves Canada’s cultural diversity. And is the owner of www.internationalnannies.com.