Groups wrangle for long drawn out solutions while disabled seniors need help today

The real needs of seniors living in poverty are often a result of their disability. Seniors get no assistance from the Province or the Federal Government towards the additional costs that they incur with their disability.

Seniors with disabilities on PEI are cut-off from supports when they reach their 65th birthday. The regulations say that you must be under 65 to apply for disability supports.

Of 9,000 seniors with disabilities on PEI, 1,600 need some assistive device that they can’t afford. The balance either have a health care plan or their own funds to purchase what they need.

If you are 15, 45 or 55 years old and need a $10,000 wheelchair, the PEI Disability Support Program will buy it for you, assuming you meet the income test. If you are 65 years of age and need the wheelchair, tough luck. The Province is too cheap to help.

When seniors with disabilities can’t get the help they need, they end up in nursing and seniors homes which cost 7 times what it costs to keep them at home. The PEI Taxpayer pays that bill. It’s a false economy to deny help to people when the result will cost you many times more, similar to not fixing a leaking roof and then the ceilings and floors in a house have to be repaired.

The sick part of this that people are more likely to be disabled as they age. For all age groups only 14% of the population are disabled. By 65 years of age, that number has climbed to 33% and at 75 years of age it has reached 56%

Children and working age adults often qualify for group medical plans that pay for disability devices and generally have more disposable incomes than seniors living on pensions.

Tough luck to disabled seniors said Premier Pat Binns and tough luck says Premier Robert Ghiz.

It’s a sin that politicians and civil servants can lavish high salaries, benefits, and pensions on themselves and not help those truly in need. The money wasted in the PNP program would have paid for seniors benefits for more than 100 years.

If the PEI Government includes the disabled seniors in the PEI DSP, they have solved a big part of the problem of poverty among seniors and saved the taxpayer money.

PEI’s Legislative Social Development Committee is hearing from groups on the issues of seniors poverty. The Federal Government is discussing the same issues under Canada Pension and GIC.

CBC the wasted resource

CBC in the video clip made the understated comment “inadequate disability supports” which would be amusing if CBC didn’t understand the problem. Try “no disability supports.”

The minimalist CBC coverage is typical of their reporting on disability stories. CBC Charlottetown likes stories about children that build sympathy for Rotary Easter Seals. If CBC spent the time reporting real stories about people with disabilities and not promoting their PR telethon, we might solve some problems.