Canadian Home Care Priorities for Seniors: What Can We Learn From Australia? Your questions answered

In May, our international webinar, Canadian Home Care Priorities for Seniors: What Can We Learn From Australia?, sparked many more questions than we were able to answer in one hour, so we asked our panelists to address your questions directly.

Here, one of our panelists, Pamela Fralick, President and CEO of the Canadian Healthcare Association, answers your question about underserved and vulnerable populations. If you want to see all the answers from all three panelists, or the presentations from the webinar, click here.

Q: Can you identify any specific strategies in working with the Aboriginal population and aging strategies in relation to this?

A: At the federal level, Health Canada launched the First Nations and Inuit Home and Community Care (FNIHCC) program in 1999. The program provides various health-related home care, including case management and nursing care. In addition, the Assisted Living program, administered by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development provides support services to elderly or disabled First Nations persons living on reserves. Services provided include homemaker, foster care and institutional care services.

Throughout Canada, provinces and territories vary in the extent to which they provide home care services to Aboriginal People. Challenges lie in providing adequate home care to these populations and ameliorating the differences between the provincial home care program and the on-reserve federally-funded programs. The differences can make it difficult to offer consistent care delivery.

From 2008 to 2010, the Victorian Order of Nurses undertook a National Aboriginal Health Initiative through which several culturally relevant resources were developed.