Business View - March 2015 131
agenda list between now and then?
JOHNSTON:
Well, like every country in the westernized
world, the aging tsunami is facing us here in Canada
and in Ontario. And, we are concerned about the lack
of government strategy to deal with what is coming, as
resources tighten up and the costs of delivering ser-
vices to that growing community are just going to in-
crease astronomically. And so, in five years, we would
hope that there would be some partnerships between
the private and public sectors, that support seniors
being able to age in their own homes and in retirement
communities, congregate settings, that are financially
viable for those seniors, so that they are not being
forced to depend on nursing home care, institutional
care that is extremely expensive and nobody likes it.
So, innovative partnerships would be something that I
would definitely like to see five years from now. There’s
a lot of silos out there in the delivery of services to
seniors and in healthcare, we would like to see that
come down so that we can work collaboratively to en-
sure that seniors are respected and are able to move
through the continuum, are able to move in and out of
hospital, with the proper support to ensure that they
can maximize the years that they have left to them.
So, that is definitely a significant part of what we’re
looking for. We also want to see our database, CORE,
on the lips of everybody in the country, in terms of be-
ing the source for information on our sector. So, those
would be two areas that I hope evolve over the next
two years.
BUSINESS VIEW: You mentioned the private-public
sector partnerships and that you hope for them to
happen – how much of that is hope and how much
do you think some of that will actually come true in
five years?
JOHNSTON
: We believe that some of it will come true
out of necessity. We believe that the government can-
not afford to support the aging population on its own.
We believe that there has to be a move towards the
sharing of that, and so, it will happen. How do we posi-
tion our sector to be in a proactive way to determine
what that future looks like, rather than handed to us or
dictated to us? And that is our challenge, but one way
or another, we will see the sector evolve. It’s the part
we play in that evolution that’s critical.
HEALTHCARE
