As life expectancy pushes into the late 70s for men and well into the 80s for women, ever more people want help in order to be able to live their lives to the full for as long as possible.  How will demographic and labour market trends affect the supply of family and friends available to care for us? Can we rely on family carers as the sole source of support for frail seniors? Should family carers and friends be better supported, and if so how? Can we attract and retain care workers -- is it just a matter of paying them better? Will public finances be threatened by the cost of providing care in the future? What should be the balance between private responsibility and public support in care-giving? Can we reduce costs by improving efficiency of long-term care services?

Of the Edmonton workers who took the survey by the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, 71.8 per cent said they were unable to meet response times targets at least three times over their last four shifts and 72 per cent said they had calls they couldn't get to for an hour or more.

146 out of 304 eligible union members responded

crews are also often tied up staying with patients who lie in the hallways of emergency departments for hours, waiting for treatment

A report by the Erie St. Clair LHIN found several reasons for patients turning down long-term care facilities. Seniors interviewed for the report described long-term care as:substandard careexpensiverestrictivea place to go to die

Family members of seniors interviewed for the report had mixed opinions, describing facilities in general as:24/7 caresaferesort stylenot a good placethe last stopexpensiveinstitutional

study after study in Canada over the last 30 years shows that aging exerts only a small and predictable pressure on health care spending (less than one per cent annually from 2010 to 2036).

increases in utilization—how many and how often Canadians use health services—are twice as important as aging in increasing costs year by year

people are seeing a larger number of doctors overall. In particular, they are being referred to specialists more often.

Increasingly, scientists in Canada, the U.S., UK and elsewhere are mapping the spread of diseases on a micro-geographic level – looking to social determinants of health neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Some argue that urban polarization makes for big differences in health outcomes in small areas.

A 2011 study done by the Direction de Santé Publique de Montréal found men in poorer neighbourhoods lived a almost 11 years less than their counterparts in wealthier areas. The study found people in better-off neighbourhoods go longer without disabilities, and are far less likely to have their babies die shortly after birth. Children and teenagers in poor neighbourhoods die at twice the rate of youth in rich areas.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper must join Canada's premiers at the negotiating table to discuss medi-care reforms or the country's public health care system will grow weaker, medical privatization will spread and national unity will be imperilled, says Roy Romanow.

he is worried the Harper government has adopted a deliberate strategy of leaving health care to the provinces - possibly to foster the development of more private, for-profit medical companies.

the prime minister's view that "open federalism" should involve less federal meddling in how provinces run their health care systems.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is now touring the country to see how her provincial counterparts want to proceed, with the official aim of stitching together a new accord that would set national standards and hold provincial governments to account for their spending.

"It's a possibility that we have no codified accord," said one federal source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was asked this past week in a radio interview whether Ottawa is, in effect, telling the provinces to take full responsibility for health care.

Research funded by Vancouver Coastal recently found that providing people who live in supportive housing with a meal a day reduced rates of hospitalization, Bruce said.

The Ottawa Hospital and the Queensway Carleton Hospital will stop relocating dozens of elderly patients to Valley Stream Manor, a retirement home on the city's west side that, for the past two years, has provided temporary beds for seniors while they wait for permanent spaces in nursing homes.

The 50 "interim long-term care" beds at Valley Stream will be phased out

On one side of the debate is the Champlain Local Health Integration Network, the regional health authority, which has decided to shift its limited funding away from programs that feed demand for expensive beds in hospitals and nursing homes. Instead, the Champlain LHIN wants to focus on strengthening programs that help hospitalized seniors return to their own homes so that they are not admitted prematurely to nursing homes.

One of North America’s largest operators of seniors’ care homes is laying off all of its unionized staff at Malaspina Gardens in Nanaimo and will replace them with contracted-out workers by July, part of a plan to build a new facility.

The 177 workers at the 135-bed long-term care home got word just after New Year’s Day from employer Chartwell Seniors Housing Real Estate Investment Trust, which operates in 180 Canadian and U.S. locations.

The spokesman for the union representing the bulk of the laid-off employees expects wage reductions to be more than 30 per cent, based on past instances in B.C. where unionized workers were replaced by non-union staff.

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) argues that a move toward single patient rooms is vital as nosocomial infections are becoming a deadly concern, with more than 50% of hospital beds in Canada now on wards with four or more beds per room

There’s an 11% increase in the risk of Clostridium difficile infection, a 10% increase in the risk of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and an 11% higher risk of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus infection with each exposure to a new hospital roommate, according to a recent study coauthored by Dr. Dick Zoutman, professor of microbiology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and chief of staff at the Belleville General Hospital in Ontario (Am J Infect Control 2010;38:173–81).

While opting to align Canada’s guidelines with those of the United States, the United Kingdom and several Scandinavian nations, the CSA indicated there may be clinical circumstances in which patients would benefit from the social and psychological advantages of shared rooms

Preventive measures are required to reduce both acquisition of C. difficile and infection in people colonized by the organism. A “care bundle” approach has worked to reduce the number of cases in both Canada6 and the United Kingdom.7 Evidence-based national guidelines demand that all elements of the bundle be adhered to at all times.8 These elements include prudent prescribing of antibiotic medications, proper hand hygiene, use of personal protective equipment, early isolation of patients who have been colonized or infected and environmental cleaning.

Environmental decontamination using chlorine-containing compounds (≥ 1000 ppm available chlorine) is more effective than using detergent alone.8 In addition, hydrogen peroxide as a dry mist or vapour is emerging as an effective alternative for reducing environmental contamination.10

The reporting of cases of C. difficile is now mandatory in a number of American states and four Canadian provinces, but no national datasets exist.13,14 The US has subsequently set a target to reduce the onset of cases in health care facilities by 30% before 2013.15