Nunavut Home and Community Care Services

Practice description:
The Home and Community Care program offers health related services, which enable people with disabilities, chronic or acute illness and the elderly to receive the care they need in their home communities. Although Nunavut has been offering home care services for some time now, the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIB) funded program was introduced to Nunavut in the 1999-00 fiscal year. The goal of the FNIB Home and Community Care program is to provide basic home and community care services that are comprehensive, culturally sensitive, accessible, effective and equitable to that of other Canadians and which respond to the unique health and social needs of First Nations and Inuit. All information on home care clients is sent to the Health Information and Research Section at departmental headquarters in Iqaluit where a pilot project was conducted to test a database for collecting and reporting on client services designed to meet Health Canada reporting requirements. This pilot is now complete and the department has been reporting quarterly for the past year. This is the first annual report. In Nunavut, the program is coordinated through three regional coordination centers. Services are provided by Home Care Nurses, Home Care Representatives and Home and Community Care Workers I and II. The role of the Home and Community Care Worker I is to provide basic home making services to clients such as washing dishes and making beds. The Home and Community Care worker II provides basic home making services along with personal care services. These personal care services include assisting clients with basic hygiene such as washing, dressing and feeding. Most work carried out by the Home and Community Care Workers I and II is directly with individual clients. Similar to Home and Community Care Workers I and II, Home and Community Care Representatives provide interpretive, health and support services to clients, enabling them to stay in their homes and to promote the best level of functioning in activities of daily living. Home Care Nurses oversee all home care services in the community. They ensure the delivery of quality case management as well as provide nursing duties and support services to clients. This enables clients to stay in their homes and function at their optimal level.