Blue Cross has approved us and we can start doing self directed home care and respite as of Oct 1! I’ve already called the incredibly wonderful company that was suggested to me by one of our choir members and we are “in talks”.
This company will do what we need them to do as opposed to AHS home care which can only offer a very narrow choice of types of tasks that they can perform and often only end up spending 15 to 20 minutes max at a person’s place in order to perform said tasks. Plus with Bayshore doing the actual hiring and program delivery, it’s not only complicated and messy but many times outright unreliable.
This company we are “in talks with” will take their time and get to know Dad and spend time doing what Dad wants to do and what we actually need done. Amazing!
This is extremely exciting for us. We didn’t realize we even needed the help until we got some help. Does that make sense? We kept thinking that we could do it all ourselves since “we’re right here” and really it’s just a lot of “small tasks” and “staying on top of things” and “going to appointments” etc etc.
Just having our volunteer visitor come from St Albert every week made a positive difference in my Dad’s life and by extension ours. And then we hired a nice young woman to do a variety of things for my Dad 3 times a week for this past month and that made even more impact. We feel like we’ve been breathing a lot easier since she started.
Plus the other benefit of this program is that we don’t have to pay for it. We are allowed 38 home care hours and 26 respite hours a month. For us, that’s huge and life altering.
And it means Dad can stay here with us longer than we originally thought. Amazing.
Oct 1 – the significance is not lost on me. My Mother passed away in 2019 on Oct 1. And it is also National Seniors Day. nice.
