More than nine months after expressing Ontario’s intention to retain PSWs, implementation continues to hit major bumps in the road.(CanStock Photo)
In 2010 a provincial coalition of experts was assembled to look an integrated hospice palliative care system in Ontario.
Hospices are a specialized residential facility for palliative care patients. As the coalition’s report states, “hospice palliative care is a philosophy of care that aims to relieve suffering and improve the quality of living and dying.”
To do that the government relies on these hospices to produce a substantial portion of own-source revenue, most of that coming through fundraising.
Among the many recommendations in the four-year-old coalition report is one to increase the percentage of public funding for Ontario’s hospices to 80 per cent of their operating expenses. Presently it is about 50 per cent.
It may be wise to keep that in mind as the hospices now grapple with unexpected costs associated with the government’s initiative to improve PSW wages and address the sector’s ongoing recruitment and retention issues.
OPSEU Diablogue 