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Quebec is launching a new home health-care policy that it says will make more family caregivers eligible for government funding, but groups that represent people who need these services are disappointed with the plan.<\/p>\n
At a news conference Thursday in Montreal, Health Minister Sonia B\u00e9langer said the goal is to enable seniors and people with physical disabilities to live at home as long as possible.<\/p>\n
“With this policy, we choose to offer services and care tailored to people’s actual needs in order to support their autonomy, safety and quality of life,” B\u00e9langer said.<\/p>\n
The total investment is $107 million.<\/p>\n
The policy includes expanding an existing program that grants people an allowance to pay for assistance in their home.<\/p>\n
But the group \u00c9toile de Pacho, which supports parents of disabled children, said the changes are mostly cosmetic.<\/p>\n
“Our interpretation of this policy is that there is very little that is new; it is more of an update of what has been happening on the ground for several years already,” the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Ariane Gauthier-Tremblay, spokesperson for M\u00c9MO-Qc, a group that supports people with disabilities and spinal cord injuries, told CBC in an interview the plan is a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n
“It’s a real disappointment. We see the announcement as an insult for people with disabilities,” Gauthier-Tremblay said.<\/p>\n
Sylvie Tremblay, CEO of the Regroupement Provincial des Comit\u00e9s des Usagers (RCPU), a group that support patients, said the announcement raised many questions but offered few answers.<\/p>\n
“We would have liked a little more detail. How will this be implemented, what does it mean for caregivers on a daily basis?” Tremblay said.<\/p>\n
Minister calls program ‘extremely complex’<\/p>\n
B\u00e9langer said this change means some family caregivers who were previously ineligible for compensation will soon be recognized as service providers under the program.<\/p>\n
In addition to expanding eligibility, the hourly compensation amount is being increased by a dollar, from $20 to $21.<\/p>\n
And CLSCs will now be the entry point for people looking for compensation, which B\u00e9langer said will simplify the process.<\/p>\n
The total budget for the caregiver allowance is being increased by $1.1 million immediately, with additional funding of $22.2 million planned for next year.<\/p>\n
B\u00e9langer said the program would not offer retroactive benefits to caregivers.<\/p>\n
She struggled to explain precisely who would benefit, how much compensation they might receive, and when that compensation would kick in.<\/p>\n
“It’s an extremely complex program,” B\u00e9langer said. “It’s difficult for me to give you an amount because it really depends on each person’s needs.”<\/p>\n
B\u00e9langer said details would come later, touting a “very solid communication plan” in the coming days. <\/p>\n
But many groups aren’t celebrating.<\/p>\n
In its statement, \u00c9toile de Pacho said the $1 increase for hourly compensation was “marginal,” and Gauthier-Tremblay called it “paltry.”<\/p>\n
Gauthier-Tremblay also doubted using CLSCs to manage the program would simplify things.<\/p>\n
“For 30 years, governments have been weakening CLSCs, and today they’re pretending that the CLSC will take charge of everything?” she said.<\/p>\n
Tremblay noted most of the funding won’t kick in until next year.<\/p>\n
“This year is an election year, so we’ll see how it all plays out. We would have liked it to be faster,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-442069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}