An expert summarises what senior care centres can do for you
by Dee Gibney
The province of Ontario has 43 Community Care Access Centres (CCACs), established since 1998. These are an absolutely integral aspect of Ontario’s senior care. These centres provide seniors with long-term care and community services. CCACs answer to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and are governed by independent, incorporated, non-profit boards of directors.
What do CCACs do for Ontario’s seniors’ community?
CCACs provide "one-stop shopping" that assesses eligibility and meets the needs of people seeking support. This includes:
- Providing visiting professional health and homemaker services that allow people to remain in their own homes as long as possible
- Authorising all admissions to all long-term care facilities funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
- Managing and coordinating service planning through agencies supplying home care services, such as the Red Cross and Victoria Order of Nurses
- Providing information on, and referral to, all other long-term care services, including volunteer-based community services
- Providing information regarding retirement residence options.
Community and home health care services include:
- Homemaking (light housekeeping, laundry, grocery shopping, meal preparation)
- Personal support (help with bathing, dressing, mobility, grooming, hygiene)
- Nursing
- Physiotherapy, occupational therapy
- Speech and/or language therapy
- Social work
- Medical supplies and dressings
- Hospital and sickroom equipment
- Laboratory and diagnostic services
- Transportation to other health care services
- Eligibility for drug coverage under the Ontario Drug Benefit Plan.
Community Care Access Centres facilitate home health care that allows seniors to remain independent from retirement homes in Ontario.
