PROVIDENCE BAY – The new privately run Manitoulin Care at Home business has opened in Providence Bay by personal support worker (PSW) Yvonne Bond, who wants to help provide the services seniors and elders need to be able to remain in their homes.
“I will work predominantly with elders and seniors and by opening up my business I’m trying to help keep them in their homes longer—where they want to stay—with the services I can provide to help them,” Ms. Bond told the Recorder last week.
Ms. Bond explained, “when my husband and I were living in Sudbury we had a five-year plan to move out of the city, but I was not ready to retire. I thought about what type of business or service I could offer that is needed no matter where I live. I had done some homecare on the Island in the late 1980s and I loved it.”
“So I took an updated training course in PSW at the Canada Career College and then worked for a service provider in Sudbury,” Ms. Bond told the Recorder. “Then we moved to the Island and worked for a service provider here, but decided to do what I really wanted to do, to open my own private business.”
She recalled, “the first week of school the 15 other students, when asked what they wanted to do after they graduated, said they wanted to go into long-term care. I wanted to open my own private business.”
“My husband and I came to the Island two years ago this past July for a family reunion, and by the next week we had bought a house here,” said Ms. Bond. “I had never envisioned moving back to the Island but here I am and loving it.”
“The PSW course and being able to help others remain in their home and their hometown is one way I can give back to the community,” said Ms. Bond. “Being a PSW is hard work and can be emotionally hard at times, but it is rewarding work and I love it.”
Service providers are told by the Ontario government how many minutes it takes to bathe a client, dress a client and get a client ready for the day, said Ms. Bond. That is the amount of time that a PSW is given to provide the services depending on what program the client is with. “I found that in many cases more care was needed, a floor needed swept, dishes done or just time to sit and visit with clients but no time allotted to it.” As a private business, “I can provide personal care to a client, light housework, take them to a doctor’s appointment or even shopping, or just be someone that they can sit and talk to—a PSW may be the only person that the senior living at home may see or talk to all day,” she noted. “To me it is important to look at all facets to make sure the person you are working with is healthy, happy and living in their homes.”
“There are people out there that need the help and services to remain in their home, but it can be a lengthy process to get the referral from doctor requesting care, only to be put on a wait list to receive care form a service agency,” continued Ms. Bond. “By opening my own business and being a third party I can offer some of these services. That’s why I opened Manitoulin Care at Home.”
It appears this type of business is needed on the Island, said Ms. Bond. “I don’t know, to my knowledge, anyone who is operating this type of privately run business on the Island. There are people who do house cleaning etc., but for instance they are not certified and insured which I am in both cases.”
Ms. Bond will take clients across the Island.
To contact Ms. Bond for more information call 705-377-4133.
