The province is expanding its community paramedicine project to parts of southwestern Ontario.
$6-million is being invested to support aging residents in London and Middlesex County.
MPP Monte McNaughton says the program will help seniors stay in their own homes longer, rather than making the move to long term care.
“There’s a backlog of people waiting to get into long term care homes, in the past 15 years only 600 new long term care beds were added to the system,” McNaughton says. “What the community paramedicine program does is it allows people to stay home and have access to services, long term care essentially, in their own home.”
The program includes in-home and remote access to health care services, non-emergency home visits, and a greater emphasis on education about healthy living and managing chronic diseases.
“Seniors built this province and built this country, they deserve to have services in their own homes. Paramedics have really stepped up to deliver these programs with modern technology, an innovative way of delivering long term care services with people left in their own homes.”
The paramedicine program was first launched in October in five communities, and has since expanded into Windsor-Essex and Lambton County.
McNaughton says plans are in the works to bring the program to Chatham-Kent as well in the not-too-distant future.
