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When Joan Palmer lost her driver's licence nearly five years ago, she lost a lot more than her car.
"They took away all my independence," says the 87-year-old resident of Port Stanley, Ontario. "I always drove myself wherever I had to go."
Palmer, a driver since 1939, was caught speeding. After failing a mandatory driving test, she found herself stranded in a rural community with no public transportation. Palmer turned to the Middlesex-Elgin branch of the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) for help.
Now, she says, "I don't know what I'd do without them."
In just about every corner of Ontario, seniors and retirees turn to local agencies for a ride if public transit becomes difficult to use or is nonexistent.
In Middlesex-Elgin, for instance, 45 volunteers scattered throughout the county drive seniors to and from medical appointments or to do their errands.
"The drivers are always so polite and so charming. It makes all the difference for me. It's made an incredible difference to the whole community of people."
Program manager D.J. Smale says her volunteers provide approximately 140 rides per month to seniors and people with disabilities. The VON also operates a dialysis transportation program for 28 local residents. Support from a local Lioness Club means the agency can hire a taxi company to drive small groups to and from London, Ontario for treatment three times a week.
In Bolton, Ontario, 78-year-old Evangeline Leach relies on volunteers with Caledon Community Services to drive her to swimming class every two weeks, to see her doctor twice a month and occasionally to get her hair done.
"The drivers are always so polite and so charming. It makes all the difference for me. It's made an incredible difference to the whole community of people," she says.
Susan Cameron is the executive director of the Caledon agency, north of Peel Region, and says she relies on both volunteer and paid drivers to provide about 21,000 rides every year to seniors over age 65 and people with disabilities.
Big city residents can also require help getting around. Even with Toronto's ample public transit system, some seniors still need a better way to travel.
"We try to reach the most vulnerable people in the community, those with no other options," says Sarah Singh, project manager for Toronto Ride. "We want to reduce the cases of isolation."
Toronto Ride, an umbrella organization, provides assistance including driver training and scheduling software to other agencies. Both paid and volunteer drivers supply rides to retirement-age people for roughly half a regular taxi fare. And under a ride-sharing program a ride request can be posted on a central computer system and picked up by another agency.
While Toronto certainly has its challenges for vehicle-less seniors, volunteer drivers are essential in the Northern Ontario community of Blind River, sandwiched between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie.
"It takes one or two hours to get to a doctor," says Christopher La Berge, who co-ordinates the transportation program at the Blind River District Health Centre. That means the 15 volunteer drivers must make generous time commitments, because with waiting time a single trip to the doctor can add up to five or six hours.
The Blind River program takes care of approximately 100 people every year, with fees ranging from a few dollars for in-town trips to $20 or more depending on distance and type of vehicle. Northern Ontario seniors may be eligible for travel grants if their doctors are more than 100 kilometres away.
Seniors seeking transportation should contact a local community service agency or the Ontario Community Support Association. Call 1-800-267-6272 or visit www.ocsa.on.ca.
Doubtless, the Ontario Community Support Association is a helpful alternative to being unnecessarily forced into a retirement home in Ontario.
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