Edmonton pediatric home care question

[kelseya]

Is Edomonton pediatric home care contracted by agency or Capital health region controls it , that is have their own nurses who provides care at home. I know calgary health region now controls pediatric home care, no contract for agencies, i'm wondering if it's the same in Edmonton

[Fiona59]

Jan might now. I just remember friend who worked pediatric homecare were all employed by agencies (wecare, etc). I even remember seeing ads placed by the parents looking for LPNs to do in home overnight care.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Given that Capital Health no longer exists, I can safely say that Capital Health is not the major provider of pediatric home care services in Edmonton. However, these services are coordinated out of Alberta Health Services and the Stollery. One of the casuals on our unit works for home care and she is an AHS employee in that job. That isn't to say that it won't be contracted out in the future. There are several models for administering this type of program in Alberta, including a family-managed arrangement where the family hires the staff and pays them with money provided by the government. Persons with Developmental Disabilities has a similar option; I'd much rather have the agency providing the service do all the screening, hiring, bonding and administration, thank you very much.

[Fiona59]

I'm not really sure what the OP is asking.

Like I posted earlier, WeCare and those types of agencies did (do?) employ LPNs for overnight care of fragile children. I used to know someone who stayed over and looked after a child that had a trach and a feeding tube. But they weren't "homecare" from the region type cases. More like a pediatric LTC patient.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Those types of arrangements are not the norm. I worked for one of those agencies and did peds home care for them. The agency was contracted by the family in a couple of cases (because the didn't qualify for regional supports and so paid out of pocket) and by the Nunavut government in one case because the child was in medical foster care. I think if we were to dig deeper into those cases you mention we might find that ultimately the province is/was paying for the services even though they weren't directly providing them.

http://www.capitalhealth.ca/NewsAndEvents/Features/2007/Home_Care_Childrens_Services_award