Ontario Investing in Expanded Home & Community Care in Ottawa

Ottawa – Ontario is making major investments to expand home and community care to help end hallway health care and build more capacity in communities across the province. Today, Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long Term Care, was at the The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic Campus to announce that the government is investing more than $8.4 million to expand home and community care services in the national capital.

Highlighting the importance of innovative new projects like the Ottawa Hospital’s YouCare@Home program. This is part of a province wide strategy announced in September by Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health.

“All in all, our PC government is investing almost $8.5 million dollars this year in the Ottawa area to expand home and community care in our community,” said Minister Fullerton. “By increasing access to home and community care services, we are keeping patients from spending unnecessary time in our hospitals.”

As a part of this investment, the government is providing $4.25 million to the Ottawa Hospital to develop the YourCare@Home program.

• YourCare@Home is an intensive 16-week program of home and community care that is designed to create a direct pathway to home for patients who have completed their acute care length of stay, wish to go home, and require a more complex plan of care to ensure a safe transition home.

“The announcement today is a great starting point to providing much needed capacity in our community to safely transition some of our patients to the home setting,” said Cameron Love, Chief Operating Officer, The Ottawa Hospital. “Working alongside our community health partners, including St. Elizabeth Health Care, Carefor and CBI, this program will allow us to safely transition patients who require more complex care and assistance to the home setting.”

“I am very excited to see more programs like this get off the ground; innovative ideas like this are a key step towards eliminating hallway healthcare,” said MPP Jeremy Roberts. “With more patients receiving the care they need in the comfort of their own home, we can ensure more beds are made available for the patients that need them.”

“This is great news for the Ottawa community, especially for the people of Carleton. Innovative integrated care models in Home and Community Healthcare play a critical role in ending hallway health care,” added MPP Goldie Ghamari. “Patients will now experience smoother transitions between hospital care and returning home with the appropriate supports they need to properly recover. These transitions will also ensure that more hospital beds are available for those who need them.”