Press Releases

Bayshore Home Health's campaign to support family caregivers receives overwhelming response

– 13,000 Canadians share their stories and voice their support on Vote to Support Caregivers Facebook Page –

Mississauga, – ON Dec. 8, 2011 – A new social media campaign has shed light on a growing group of Canadians who play a fundamental role in the country’s health care system.

In September, Bayshore Home Health, Canada’s largest provider of home and community health care, launched a Facebook campaign entitled Vote to Support Caregivers aimed at garnering nationwide support for publicly funded initiatives and programs to support Canada’s “Care Champions" – those dedicated Canadians who provide ongoing care for sick or elderly family members at home. Within only two months of the campaign’s debut, more than 13,000 unique users joined the Facebook page and voted for increased support for the work family caregivers are doing across the country.

"We are excited and moved by the overwhelming response the campaign has received within such a short period of time,” says Stuart Cottrelle, President of Bayshore Home Health. “And the message could not be clearer. There is an unquestionable need for organized and dedicated government support for family caregivers and the crucial role they play in Canada’s health care system.

As Canada’s population continues to age, family caregivers are becoming a growing demographic tasked with caring for their elderly relatives. Statistics show that Canada’s senior population will reach a staggering 6.7 million in 2021 and 9.2 million by 2041, which will account for close to half of the growth of the overall Canadian population in the next four decades. As the burden on the country’s health care system continues to grow, family caregivers will play an increasingly vital role in alleviating the dependency on the system by caring for loved ones who would otherwise use formal services, generating mentionable cost savings to the system."

While family caregiving is a rewarding task, it can also be a stressful and around the clock job. Often times, family caregiving adds an additional 20 hours per week on top of other demands such as a full-time job and caring for immediate family members such as children. Furthermore, there are clear financial and professional challenges associated with this task. A recent Health Canada study found that 25 per cent of informal caregivers are required to take time off work to look after a sick or elderly relative, and that this number is expected to increase exponentially.

"Demographic trends show that status quo for family caregivers is not sustainable. Bayshore is urging governments to develop and implement programs and funding in support of their efforts,” says Cottrelle. “We’ll be taking the results of the Vote to Support Caregivers campaign to policy makers across the country, including all federal MPs and provincial MPPs, in an effort to encourage debate and policy outcomes that are urgently needed.”

A promising step in the right direction, the Ontario government recently committed to providing eight weeks of unpaid job security to those individuals who need to take time off work to care for a sick loved one. The federal government has also recognized the importance of supporting family caregiving with its own commitment to increase funding for community-based home care.

"We look forward to participating in discussions in the coming months about building on these programs toward a true national strategy to tackle this issue,” continues Cottrelle. "We want our country’s caregivers to be heard.”

About Bayshore Home Health

Bayshore Home Health has been enhancing the quality of life, dignity and independence of Canadians in their homes since 1966. Canadian owned and operated, it is the country's largest provider of home and community health care services, with more than 50 home care offices and two-dozen community care clinics. It delivers nursing, personal care, home support and companion services to more than 70,000 Canadians annually, and also offers nurse and caregiver staffing services to health care organizations and corporate clients. Its subsidiaries provide specialty pharmacy, infusion and pharmaceutical support services (Bayshore Specialty Rx), physiotherapy and rehabilitation services (Bayshore Therapy & Rehab), and dialysis services (Bayshore Dialysis). More information can be found at www.bayshore.ca.

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