Health News
Ontario expands access to health care in communities

The province is investing more than $2.8 million to expand access to
health-care services across the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration
Network (LHIN). The health-care services and programs supported by this
investment include:

•    Enhancing rehabilitative services and
programs to help seniors with complex medical conditions who have
experienced a recent loss of strength or mobility.  This will help frail
seniors regain the physical strength to return home after a stay in
hospital and avoid emergency department visits and hospital admissions. 
These investments will be provided to Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent
Health Alliance, Leamington District Memorial Hospital and Windsor
Regional Hospital.

•    Expanding access to physiotherapy into
primary health care settings at the Essex County Nurse Practitioner-Led
Clinic.  This will help residents, including seniors, access programs
supported by physiotherapists at the same place where they receive
primary health care services, including diagnoses for common illness and
injuries, and support to manage chronic conditions.

•    Helping
the Essex County Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic to deliver timely,
appropriate, high-quality low back pain services in partnership with
City Centre Health Care in Windsor.  This is part of Ontario’s
investment for primary care organizations to provide additional hours
for a range of allied health providers including chiropractors,
physiotherapists and registered massage therapists to address low back
pain.  This includes providing faster and more accurate assessments of
low back pain problems using a more holistic approach.

•  
 Investing in local mental health and addictions organizations in the
Erie St. Clair LHIN to provide care closer to home for those who are
experiencing mental health and addictions challenges. This is part of
the next phase of Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions
Strategy.

Improving access to home care, community supports and
mental health and addiction services is part of the government’s plan to
build a better Ontario through its Patients First: Action Plan for
Health Care, the ministry said. This program aims to provide patients
with faster access to the right care, better home and community care,
the information they need to stay healthy and a health care system
that’s sustainable for generations to come.

Ontario is investing
$44 million province wide in rehabilitative and expanded physiotherapy
services, to support home and community care.

About 150,000
individuals, or about eight per cent of all seniors living in the
community, have multiple chronic conditions or complex care needs that
may lead to hospital stays. For frail seniors, extended bed rest during a
hospital stay can cause more rapid loss of muscle strength and
flexibility than in younger people.

Approximately 30 per cent of
Ontarians will experience a mental health and/or substance abuse problem
at some point in their lifetime, with one out of 40 Ontarians having a
serious mental illness.