Two well-respected health policy experts and the former mayor of Ottawa will be crossing the province this month to hear from patients, family members, seniors and advocacy groups on home care reform in Ontario: Patricia Baranek, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto; Marion Dewar, a public health nurse by profession, a former mayor of Ottawa and Member of Parliament; and Carol Kushner, a health policy analyst and author will form an expert panel that will hear from stakeholders in five communities to collect ideas on reforming Ontario's homecare system. The panelists will use this input to write a report, which will be submitted to the provincial government.

The McGuinty government implemented a province-wide moratorium on tendering homecare contracts this past January following massive public outcry over eliminating the non-profit Victorian Order of Nurses and St. Joseph's from the bidding process in Hamilton. Thousands protested to signal a deep dissatisfaction with the controversial "competitive bidding" system and the potential loss of long-standing community agencies.

This is the second moratorium imposed by the McGuinty government.

Our goal is to provide the full range of stakeholders the opportunity to offer their input and to come up with some better homecare reform options," says Natalie Mehra, Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. "A very wide range of groups and people concerned about homecare have responded to the call for submissions in each town."

"Presentations are scheduled from patients' families to policy experts, homecare agencies to careworkers, and we are inviting the public to come out and watch the hearings," says Cathy Carroll, Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees' International Union Local 1 Canada. "The independent panelists will create a very credible report on homecare reform and we are looking forward to hearing the input."

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