The Home Support Association has a dire warning for the province about caring for the growing wave of seniors………The same old way has not and will not work.
The New Brunswick Population Growth Strategy indicates there will be a further 100 thousand seniors in the province by 2030. Association Executive-Director Janet Gee says the Home First strategy has been late in coming and has little expectations for taking care of vastly greater numbers of seniors.
Gee says if you have more seniors, you will need more home care workers and that’s going to be a big problem unless they get more pay and, at 11 dollars an hour, young people aren;t being attracted.
She says the hourly wage should be 15 dollars an hour and points out the average age of a home care worker now is between 52 and 54 so a lot of them will be retiring themselves.
