WELLINGTON COUNTY – On Jan. 17, Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae announced the Alzheimer Society of Waterloo Wellington will be receiving $99,900 in funding to support dementia care and other supports and services.
The funding will support the Alzheimer Society of Ontario’s community-based First Link Care Navigation program, which connects people living with dementia and their families, with help to navigate care, education and resources.
“Our seniors built our communities, and now in their golden years, our provincial government will be there to support them,” stated Rae.
Alzheimer Society of Waterloo Wellington executive director Michelle Martin said the funding “will provide services to 250 clients with 1,000 individual units of service a year to provide people with really strong system navigation support.”
“It could be us helping to navigate home care services for the person living with dementia. It could be service navigation support for the care partner or the family.”
Martin told the Advertiser the organization did not apply for the funding, which is part of an advocacy campaign in partnership with the Ministry of Health.
“It’s been something that we’ve been working on with the [ministry] directly for some time,” she said.
The funding will benefit the Alzheimer society long term by helping the organization expand, she added.
“It helps us build our capacity. So even though the government is very generous to us and our donors are extremely generous to us, it’s still not enough to meet the full need of people living with dementia in our community, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction,” said Martin.
“We’ll continue to advocate with our government and other funders so we can ensure that there is funding coming in year after year …
“We’re in a bit of a catch-22 because, not only is the demand for service drastically increasing, because people living with dementia are being diagnosed earlier, and people are being a little bit more aware of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, there’s more and more people we’re finding, and just not enough programs or services to support them.”
Martin encourages people to reach out for support.
“Our services are here for everybody. They’re not just here for the person living with dementia themselves,” she said.
“The best thing that you can do to support someone living with dementia is to learn more about the disease and learn how you can support them.”
Martin added, “These people were people before their diagnosis. This was our family; these were our teachers, our [police officers, our firefighters].
“These were our community, and it’s really important that we honour them, because they’re still contributing members of our society.
“So, the more that the people around these folks can do to support them, the better off that dementia journey will be for everyone.”