Nickel Belt candidates disagree on home care issues

Home care in the province is “broken,” according to the NDP candidate for Nickel Belt.

Frances Gelinas, incumbent MPP for Nickel Belt said when she arrives at her officer there are often calls and emails about the problems facing home care.

“’My home care worker didn't show. I spent the entire night in my wheelchair, because they didn't put me to bed. I miss my grandson, my granddaughter's christening, because they didn't come in the morning,’” Gelinas said, speaking about the sorts of complaints she receives.

“Our home care system needs fixing."

But Liberal candidate James Tregonning said that no fixing is needed when something is not broken.

“I honestly don't agree that the system is broken,” he said. “The system is in a flux of evolution. And we need to match dollar for dollar what the needs are."

Both the Liberals and NDP are promising to raise the salaries of personal support workers. However, the Progressive Conservatives said they would encourage competition among private home care providers – with the aim at lowering costs while trying to improve service.

Nickel Belt Progressive Conservative candidate Marck Blay says his party would also thin out the health care bureaucracy in the province by scrapping  the local health integration networks and the community care access centres. 

“This has just been draining our tax dollars immensely, by eliminating those, so, therefore we're saving more money there, that we can then inject back into the hospital system,” Blay said.