Réjean Hébert to deliver Monday talk: ‘No home care priority without appropriate financing’
Réjean Hébert trained in geriatric medicine, was one of the first geriatric physicians in Quebec, and was the founding Director of the Research Centre on Aging in Sherbrooke and the Quebec Research Network on Aging.
We’ve all heard the stories: overcrowded hospitals with beds taken up by elderly patients who can’t go home; older adults forced to move into care facilities against their wishes; family members struggling to provide care to aging relatives who aren’t able to access community services.
All are part of the fall-out from the lack of adequate home care services, a situation that is getting worse as our health and social services systems try to cope with a population where the number of people over the age of 65 is expected to double in the next 20 years.
So what should Canada do?
A former minister of health from Quebec who has spent much of his life studying and working in the field of caring for an aging population, is coming to McMaster to offer his views on how we can better provide home care for older adults.
Réjean Hébert, who served as Minister of Health and Social Services in the National Assembly of Quebec from 2012 until earlier this year, and who was the founding scientific director of the Institute of Aging at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, will give a public talk on Monday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m., at McMaster Innovation Park, 175 Longwood Road South.
Entitled No home care priority without appropriate financing: Canada has to move, Hébert’s talk will draw on insights from his extensive research and recent political experience to discuss the need for governments to find a way to finance home care and to ensure older adults have access to a variety of options for appropriate types of care, when they need it.
Everyone is welcome to attend the event, and it will be streamed live on the internet for those who cannot be there in person. Parminder Raina, who holds the Raymond and Margaret Labarge Chair in Research and Knowledge Application in Optimal Aging at McMaster, will serve as discussant for Hébert’s presentation, followed by questions from the audience.
Hébert trained in geriatric medicine, was one of the first geriatric physicians in Quebec, and was the founding Director of the Research Centre on Aging in Sherbrooke and the Quebec Research Network on Aging.
The public talk has been organized by the McMaster Health Forum as part of its knowledge translation enterprise funded by the Labarge Optimal Aging Initiative, and is presented in collaboration with the Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres.
