Cuts hurt disabled

Reductions to home support services impact Burnaby residents
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby Now assistant editor
Published Aug. 9, 2003


The first effects of the recent Fraser Health Authority decision to reduce the amount of home support service provided to the elderly and disabled are starting to be felt.

Troy Hamilton, a south Burnaby resident who has epilepsy and is legally blind, is wondering how she will cope after she recently received notice that her six hours of home support per week are being cut back to only two hours.

"I'm worried about how my health will go," Hamilton told the Burnaby NOW this week. "They're cutting back in the wrong places."

Hamilton, who also suffers food allergies and other abdominal problems, said her home support workers used to help with her shopping, cleaning, laundry and food preparation.

Now, she will only receive assistance with cleaning, and has been told to buy frozen foods.

"I have a difficult time preparing meals, and I have seizures, so this is a safety issue to me," she said. "I once had a seizure when I was trying to make a simple cup of coffee for a friend and that resulted in second- and third-degree burns on my hand.

"This is terrible, it's going backwards. If I had something to to say to the government, I'd probably tell them to pull up their socks."

Hamilton said the cutback was made after she went through a gruelling 'review' of her needs by FHA officials - a review that each of the estimated 10,500 home support clients in the region will undergo over the next few months.

She said the process was both stressful and antagonistic.

"The review was like a fight," Hamilton said. "I had to argue with them because they wanted take take away my service from me completely. They wanted to leave me with no hours - nothing!"

Jane Dyson, of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities, said Hamilton's story is typical of what happens when the disabled lose their services.

This month, the coalition confirmed that at least one former home support client - a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic - committed suicide after his home support service was completely cut.

Dyson said she knows of studies that indicate that cutting back on home support services will ultimately lead to higher health-care costs in the future. The study found that, after three years, people who had their home support cut were costing the health-care system more than $4,000 each more per year.

For many home support clients who are homebound and have few friends or relatives in the neighbourhood, the loss of their home support worker also means the loss of their companionship and a compassionate, watchful eye.

"Home support means there is somebody going into these homes. It means there's somebody who may notice things that have changed that the person receiving the service many not notice themselves. It's a way of monitoring their health."

Ultimately, this decision will isolate people more and make them more lonely.

"And for seniors who spent years paying into the system, being told that they can now only take one bath a week is shocking - it's very shocking."

Kathy Slayman, director of FHA health services for Burnaby, said the cutbacks are intended to make sure home support service are focused on health-care needs.

"Generally speaking, the focus is to reassess the clients in terms of their health-care needs," Slayman told the Burnaby NOW recently. "If they currently receive non-health-care services or hospitality services, we'll work with the client to have them get those services from other agencies or other sources."

According to new home support guidelines approved for the Fraser North region in late June, the new goal of the service is to "meet the health and safety needs of clients within the context of the current fiscal realities."

Slayman denied that her department has been given a "budget target," and refuted allegations that the "majority" of home support services would be cut.

Another Burnaby resident worried about the potential loss of his home support service is Derek Isobe, who has cerebral palsy and currently receives about 23 hours of service per week.

"I am scared for those of us in the disability community who don't have a voice and whose support needs may be trampled on by these cutbacks," Isobe said in a series of e-mail exchanges with this newspaper. "I don't exactly know how the cutbacks are going to affect me personally yet. I don't want to speculate on how they will affect me. However, let me say the threat of these cutbacks is adding stress to an already very stressful year."