Perhaps one of the most important factors one considers when looking to age in place is healthcare. Is the community you’re living in able to meet your needs?
For the final segment of the Cochrane Eagle’s Aging in Place series, we’ll be looking at some of the healthcare services available to Cochrane residents.
In this first segment of the series, we reviewed housing options for seniors within Cochrane which includes the supportive living and long-term care establishments. Depending on who the facility serves, each provides a certain level of healthcare service to its residents.
But for seniors who wish to remain at home as long as possible, there are different healthcare options they can seek. A popular choice of many residents is Home Care, which is provided through Alberta Health Services.
“Our mission or goal is to keep people in their homes for as long as possible or as long as they want to be there. So opposed to going to a hospital or a higher level of care like long-term care or supportive living we go in and provide services for them,” said Lisa Parsons, care manager with Cochrane’s Home Care.
Parsons stressed that services available to residents and the level of service provided depend solely based on individual assessment. Residents must go through a referral process in order to meet with Home Care for an assessment.
“To get a referral, they get referred through what we call community access through Alberta Health Services. Anyone can refer – it can be self-referral, physician, someone coming out of hospital, neighbours. What happens is on that initial referral call, the access people will do a screening as to what the needs are and whether that’s something that home care will be able to provide,” Parsons said.
Though they often field calls requesting cleaning services among other things, Parsons said Home Care is strictly healthcare services.
“We have: registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and home health aids who do personal care and support. And we also have rehab staff – so we have: physical therapy, occupational therapy, and social work,” Parsons explained.
She said Cochrane’s Home Care also has access to consult services within the City of Calgary when necessary. Home Care is designed to work in conjunction with other forms of support.
“We are considered a formal support, but there’s also the informal support that they have through their family and through their friends and things like that. So we kind of work in partnership with everyone,” Parsons said.
Parsons said Home Care is available to rural residents because the team will travel “pretty much a half hour to 40 minutes in each direction” out of town.
In cases of a medical emergency, Cochrane does not have a hospital. Instead, residents can visit the Cochrane Urgent Care Centre in the Cochrane Community Health Centre.
Depending on the level of the health emergency, Cochrane residents will be transported to one of the hospitals within Calgary.
Cochrane also has a number of pharmacies to fill drug prescriptions, administer flu shots, and provide other basic forms of healthcare. Pharmacies within the town include: Grande Avenue Pharmacy, Sunset Ridge Pharmacy, Shoppers Drug Mart Pharmacy, Rexall Pharmacy, and Safeway Pharmacy.
The town also has a number of health clinics. Recently, Cochrane has seen a spike of new doctors, many of whom are seeking new patients.
Other forms of healthcare within the town that residents have access to are multiple optometry and dental clinics. There are a variety of clinics to choose from to ensure your needs are being met.
The Town of Cochrane’s Family and Community Support Services can help when it comes to more complicated seniors health issues. For example, they now employ staff for their Elder Abuse Prevention services.
“Elder abuse is extremely complex – it needs to have a complex strategy that’s a response to the growing issue,” said Sharon Moore, senior’s project facilitator for Elder Abuse Prevention.
Moore explained that senior abuse is hard to identify and can often be overlooked. The Government of Alberta defines elder abuse as any action or inaction, by self or others, that jeopardizes the health or well-being of any older adult.
“Elder abuse actually starts within the family, it’s under the family violence umbrella. It’s more than just physical abuse, it’s mostly financial and emotional,” Moore explained.
For example, Moore said pressures from a suffering economy might push people to abuse the seniors in their lives because they might have access to a pension or a large inheritance.
“Sometimes that pension and that inheritance can look pretty good. So the challenge is it’s quite often people who don’t even see it as elder abuse,” Moore said.
Her services focus on raising awareness about the issue and providing education about choices seniors have. Moore acts as a facilitator for other professionals in order to properly handle a case of elder abuse.
“My role is to come in and to look at a community development model – what’s our response in the community to elder abuse. By identifying and working with existing professionals and materials that we have there’s the ability to enhance the support, identify the gaps and strengths in the community, and begin to leverage our current resources,” Moore explained.
For a more comprehensive list of healthcare services available within Cochrane and in the area, visit cochrane.ca/321/services-for-seniors.
