Case Study: Elderly Long Term Care

Elderly Long Term Care: Proposal to the Canadian Government
Michael Burgess
University of Western Ontario

Introduction:
Need:
The elderly demographic, aged 65 and up, is one of the largest growing age groups in Canada. See figure 1 for the increase of how many elderly are predicted for the next years. This has caused a shortage of options for those in need of assistance. In Canada, only 7.1% of elderly have access to nursing homes (Government of Canada, 2013). See figure 2 for how many people are in nursing homes in each age group. At one of the nursing homes in Cambridge, I was told that it will take approximately 10 years to get through the waiting list and finally secure a spot in a nursing home.
Since nursing homes are needed

as a last resort, there has been a focus on providing assistive technologies to help with everyday life. The only thing that is not good about these assistive technologies is that some can be very expensive. With this in mind, the Ontario Government and some other provincial governments, have provided the “Healthy Homes Tax Credit”. This tax credit provides savings of 15% on technology for optimizing a persons house up to $10,000.
This is a great tax and I do believe that it would be helpful to many in need of help, however, it is not well known among the people that would be in need of this. Many people look at assistive technologies and believe that they would help but the price for them is too high and they cannot afford them. Many do not know of this tax credit that must be filled out on your tax return and therefore cannot take advantage of the discount.
Reccomendation:
What I recommend is that we provide a service that subsidizes assistive technologies more for the elders that cannnot afford it and provide a system where, we, the companies selling assistive equipment will fill out the required paperwork for obtaining the tax credit.

The main assistive device that will provide the most help and will have a high cost is a stair lift.
I believe that if each company selling this assistive equipment was to do these forms, they could advertize and provide a lower price to consumers who are not able to pay for it. Also, since many of these assistive technologies are very expensive, we will provide a discounted monthly fee that will attempt to provide access to all

people.
Current Solutions:
The current method for trying to help the elderly is that the government is: they will provide a small rebate for purchasing assistive technology in your house, a caregiver or a nursing home.

A caregiver is a person who is hired to help elderly people with many tasks that they may not be able to do on their own. This usually includes bathing, dressing, basic grooming, laundry, etc. If you hire someone for these tasks, it becomes very expensive and can be inconvenient if you need something done when the caregiver is not there.
A nursing home is another form of care and this involves an elderly person moving from their home to a building full of all amentities necessary for living well. The only downside to nursing homes is that they are the most exepnsive alternative and that there is a large waiting list for getting into one. In 2010, the Ontario Health Quality council reported, “wait times for a long-term care bed in Ontario have tripled since 2005” (Born, 2011). A nursing home has become a last resort because of these reasons and we need to do everything in our power to alleviate the amount of demand for these nursing homes.

Figure 1: Projected 65+ Demographic (Government of Canada,

2013)

Figure 2: Percentage of elderly in Nursing Homes by Age Group (Government of Canada, 2015)
Features of Solution:
Our idea is to focus on when an elderly person is just starting to lose mobility because this is the turning point for many years to come. If we can provide a solution to keep the elderly mobile and free in their own homes, it will have more benefits than can be expected. It will cause a feeling of solidarity, happiness and will allow them to be mobile in their homes. These benefits will together allow them to be able to take care of themselves in their homes for more time and will relieve the demand for nursing homes.
The government has provided the right first steps for providing assistive technology to elderly but it is relatively unknown among most people. The first thing that we propose is to provide tax credits through the companies instead of through the tax return. We believe that in allowing companies to provide the discount straight through them, it will provide free advertizing for these government subsidies that are relatively unknown and will provide companies the ability to advertize a lower price, which will increase sales. The second thing that must be done is to increase the amount of subsidies to the Healthy Homes tax credit. Right now, the subsidy is sitting at 15% up to 10,000 dollars for each and every Canadian. We propose changing this so that it is 25% off for the elderly Canadians who are in the lowest 40% of income. This will provide more for the Canadians that are in need of it the most. Right now, the system in place provides help mostly to the rich who can easily afford these assiative devices. This is because the rich are the only ones who will have the upfront money to spend on assistive devices and will have the accountants and lawyers that will advise using this tax credit.
Benefits:
 More people will be able to afford assistive devices
 Decreased need of nursing homes
 Increased mobility and safety in own home
Costs:
Cost of Stair lift: $3000 to $10,000 (for run of 10 to 15 stairs) (Campeau, 2014)
Cost of Caregivers for 5 hours a day: $3461.50/ month
Cost of Nursing home:
Daily Accommodation Rate Monthly Accommodation Rate
Basic room $56.14 $1707.59
Semi-private room $66.14 $2011.76
Private room $77.64 $2361.55
Figure 3: Cost of Nursing Home in Ontario (Government of Canada, 2013)
Conclusion:
To decrease the reliance on nursing homes, and keep many elderly feeling self sufficient and free, the government should provide more incentives to elderly people to install stairlifts. Giving elderly this opportunity will make them feel that they can provide for themselves and allows them to be more active in their own homes. This will create a healthy environment that
will help them to lead happy lifestyles and will keep them out of nursing homes for longer. The
elderly demographic is the largest growing age group and if we do not invest in this now, it could be too late. I realize that your government has the idea that we need to invest right now for future Canadians and I could not see a better area to invest than in the elderly of our community.