The measures considered shy for caregivers

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Hugo Duchaine

Wednesday, 28 march, 2018 19:54

UPDATE
Wednesday, 28 march, 2018 19:54

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The organizations deplore the fact that the investments announced in the provincial budget on behalf of elders and caregivers remain too small to make a difference.

“It is in appearance rather than in the concrete,” believes the president of the Grouping of caregivers du Québec (RANQ), Johanne Audet.

In his budget tabled Tuesday, the government Couillard intends to pay an income tax credit $ 533 for a caregiver that does not live with the sick person, if he has an income of 23, 700 $ or less. The amount then decreases until at an income of $27,000.

In the document, the government promises to total $ 103 million over five years to relieve the family caregivers.

Over 500 000 caregivers

“But this is not just a few tax credits that will ease the burden of caregivers,” said Ms. Audet, adding that a caregiver taking care of a spouse 70 years of age there is still nothing.

The tax credits will affect some 2000 people, but more than half a million Quebecers are caregivers, she said. The RANQ is also estimated that the average caregiver loses $ 16,000 in revenue per year.

“We need to stop impoverishing family caregivers […] that save millions of dollars to the State,” says in his turn the director general of the quebec Federation of Alzheimer Societies, Jean-François Lamarche.

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Jean-François Lamarche, Alzheimer Societies

He believes that he’ll soon be time to think about the pay. It reminds us that this is a “tsunami” waiting to Quebec on the number of seniors who will suffer from dementia in the coming years and ” this is not what is reflected in the budget “.

Cohabitation

However, he said he was encouraged to see that keeping seniors at home seems to be the will of the liberals. The budget provides, in particular, to invest$ 378 Million for services to seniors and 229 M$ for support at home.

He also commended the government encourage the cohabitation between generations, in order to help both seniors living alone and their grandchildren to school, for example.

Johanne Audet also appreciate that Quebec will decrease the number of hours that a volunteer must do so from a caregiver to get a tax credit from 500 to 200 hours minimum.