When the two young women from the CCAC (Community Care Access Centre) appeared at my bedside the morning I was being discharged from the hospital I could tell they really wanted to help. The senior of the two was reading my chart as she introduced me to the woman she was training. They both smiled implausibly brightly.
"Sooo..." she said, as she squinted at the nursing notes. "You had an ileostomy before, so you're OK to manage that? But you need wound care?"
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Everyone from a young age onwards understands that they will die one day. If one is young, that day is in the distant future, but if you are older, there is usually a daily reminder that it is not that far away. Thanks to modern medicine, the final day has been postponed for many. Indeed, life expectancy for both sexes has risen every decade.
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Everyone knows about Halloween but few remember that its origin was as the eve of All Saints' Day on November 1. This day honours not so much the big-name saints like Saint Peter but our ancestors who are now in heaven. Or as Dylan Thomas poetically put it, "those no longer willing with us." In small Italian towns, on November 1, like the one my wife is from, people go to the cemetery to clean the graves and place fresh flowers on them.
![Photo: [AndreasS]/flickr](http://rabble-6.rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/small-75-square/node-images/home_bed.jpg "Photo: [AndreasS]/flickr")
Most of us shudder at the idea of being hospitalized or living in a long-term care facility. As people age, it is understandable that their most common goal is to be at home as long as possible. And as people experience health care in inadequately funded hospitals across the country, the prospect of facing deteriorating health in a public institution becomes even more unnerving. It is in this context that the Ontario government released their new plan for home care on May 13, "Patients First: A Roadmap to Strengthen Home and Community Care."
Canada has a growing and aging population. In 2014 there were more than 6 million Canadians aged 65 or older, representing 15.6 per cent of the population. By 2030, seniors will number more than 9 million and make up about 25 per cent of the population. At a time when Canada needs a national strategy and leadership on health and aging, we find the government moving away from funding our cherished universal health-care system, which was based solely on need and not how much money one had. At one time the envy of the world, Canada's health-care system is slowly being eroded and privatized.
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