A very personal look at personal care

  

I respect and appreciate giving you details about my personal care may be a bit over the top, but it's  something I’ve decided to do. Because I am fearful of  my future independence. I have cerebral palsy, use a wheelchair and rely on personal care attendants for my basic daily needs. My wife Joan and I have lived in a condo for the past 17 years with hour home care.

Now, with provincial government cutbacks, that program is ending. A group of us with physical disabilities formed a corporation in 1996 to provide 24-hour home care in a newly-constructed condo building. We each own our units and pooled our home care funding to hire staff to assist us in our homes. We hire staff, administer the program and stress the importance of being in control of our own services. Essentially, we provide our own services to ourselves. It is one of a kind.

We received written notice from the provincial government Friday our program's contract will not be renewed.   Instead, an outside agency will be brought in to give us personal care, an agency who will have very little information — if any — of our consumer-based service which promotes independence. I am scared. I am unhappy. And I do not believe this is right. So over the next few days on my blog I am going to write about the wonderful staff I have been working with for years who let me be a husband, a father, a grandfather, an employee and so many other things.

So I am welcoming you intto our home — a home I hope to maintain with independence for many more years.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SIGN AN ON-LINE PETITION AGAINST HOME CARE!