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MACKAY: Invest in home care staff to cut ER wait times and increase surgical capacity

We need to ease pressure on hospitals by delivering more care in the most affordable setting — at home

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Across Ontario, exhausted unpaid caregivers make 1.9 million emergency room visits each year, simply to get a break. These visits cost the province more than $600 million and add to the growing pressures hospitals face from an aging population that is getting sicker with each passing year.

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Today, too many Ontarians face delays when trying to access the health care they need. At the same time, Ontario’s Minister of Finance recently said the current rate of health care spending is unsustainable, and innovation is required to keep the system going.

MACKAY: Invest in home care staff to cut ER wait times and increase surgical capacity Back to video

But how? The solution is straightforward: We need to ease pressure on hospitals by delivering more care in the most affordable setting — at home.

Recent findings by Deloitte Canada shows that increased government investments in home care over the past four years are making a big difference in reducing pressure in our hospitals. Home care providers have delivered almost 10 million more hours of care since 2022, helping more people get the support they need at home. At the same time, the share of long-term care residents who could potentially be supported at home has dropped to 5.5 per cent, now the lowest rate in the country.

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The results are real, but as the desperate actions of tired unpaid caregivers show us, the need for home care continues to rise, and we need to invest in more staff to meet it.

Wages fall behind others in health sector

You see, home care is the people who deliver it. It is not an expensive building with high operating costs. It is a people business – committed teams of personal support workers (PSWs), nurses and therapists who work in people’s homes to help people bathe safely, manage their medications, recover from surgery or regain strength after an illness.

To continue to grow home care, we need to ensure it is an attractive place to work, with competitive compensation.

But right now, home care workers are seeing their wages fall behind other parts of the health sector. Those working in hospitals and long-term care settings have received compensation increases of up to 5.25 per cent, yet the government has not invested recently to similarly increase home care compensation.

Therapy services, which are in high demand and critical to the safe discharge of many patients from hospital, are particularly vulnerable, as their compensation rates have lost greater ground in recent years.

When wages fall behind, experienced personal support workers, nurses and therapists leave home care, and new graduates look elsewhere for work.

The government is investing to add more hours of home care, but we also need investments to ensure we have enough professionals available to deliver that care. We need targeted investments to keep home care compensation competitive.

Investments would be impactful

Deloitte Canada estimates that a $256 million investment targeted to help grow and support the home care workforce will deliver 1.9 million more hours of care. This funding would provide the government with a 46% return on its investment by moving people out of hospital faster and delaying or avoiding long-term care placements.

Investing another $32 million targeted towards therapists’ compensation would help attract enough staff to home care to eliminate the more than 5,000-person waitlist for therapist services in the province.

Together, these investments would be impactful, and the additional care would relieve pressure on hospitals, and provide real relief to unpaid caregivers, reducing burnout and avoidable emergency department visits.

Ontario’s 2026 budget is an opportunity to invest where the returns are clear. With competitive compensation we can recruit and retain the PSWs, nurses, and therapists who make care at home possible. This will unlock more hours of care, faster hospital discharges, and fewer unnecessary ER visits and keep people well at home.

— Cameron MacKay is Chief Executive Officer of Home Care Ontario, the voice of home care in the province

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