B.C.’s Seniors Advocate makes stop in Kamloops to hear local concerns

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The concerns raised by the Kamloops seniors in the room echo what the local service providers have been hearing on the ground.

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“One thing I have always been disappointed and fascinated with I guess at the same time, is that B.C. has the lowest number of services and programs for seniors out of any place in Canada. We need to improve our seniors services and how we help especially the low fixed income seniors,” said Brenda Prevost, seniors advocate with the Kamloops Centre for Seniors Information.

The key issues surround housing, especially for the 150,000 seniors in B.C. currently renting, and the ability of seniors to age in place with the help of services like home care. Those two issues are things Mackenzie believes B.C. can fix.

“As a province, we can solve them. As a province, we can change the subsidy for renters so it’s meaningful and targets more renters. And as a province, we can eliminate the co-payment for home support and eliminate that financial barrier,” stated Mackenzie.

While improving the renter rebate for seniors, and providing free in-home care like other provinces such as Alberta, on the surface only fixes two problems, the trickle down effect would be immense.

“There are going to be people who can then afford to stay in their apartments longer and not go into long-term care. The amount of money we have to put into long-term care, if you think about 1,500 beds a year where we could have the people cared for in their own homes. That is a very significant amount of money,” added Mackenzie.

Along with addressing a number of issues, Mackenzie also focused her presentation on dispelling several misconceptions about the senior population of our province.

“Everybody is headed for the nursing home, everybody is going to develop dementia, everybody has lots of money, they just wont spend it (are myths). And I think it’s important to understand that’s actually not what it looks like and generalizations do not actually describe the vast majority of individual seniors,” said Mackenzie.

Proving misconceptions wrong, only six per cent of seniors over 65 will suffer from dementia in their lives. Less than 20 per cent will live in a nursing home and 45 per cent live on less than minimum wage.