Editor:
Re: Home care gets boost, July 19.
When I read Jeff Nagel’s article, it brought back bad memories for me when, in September 2002, the Fraser Health Authority cut our home-care budget by 35 per cent.
My position was executive director of Surrey and White Rock Homecare, and this would deeply affect the employees of the association where many of them would lose their jobs.
I fought those cuts and, because someone in the ministry didn’t like my approach, I was fired by the board, Fraser Health Authority and the Ministry of Health. It was a political decision all the way.
Home care was then the wave of the future. Why? Because it was cost efficient and it kept the elderly clients in their homes.
Fraser Health has taken almost 10 years to recognize that.
Good for Lynda Foley, Fraser Health’s executive director of home health, to pursue this, something that is not happening in Vancouver.
Just last week, Vancouver Coastal Health announced cuts to home support service.
One begins to wonder where the Ministry of Health is in Victoria, when one region supports home care and another doesn’t.
Ron Watson, Surrey