Canada vs. Sweden: Provision of Services, Financing of Home Care Services

Canada vs. Sweden-Home care
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Canada vs. Sweden
Home care relates to health services received at home and not hospitals or long-term care facilities, where the patients live independently in the community. The role of health practitioners is to deliver the healthcare services, but there are also volunteers, family caregivers, friends and non-regulated workers who complement the work of healthcare practitioners. Cost cutting efforts in Canada and Sweden have resulted in the family shouldering more responsibilities to cater for home care service provision. This is a comparison between the Canadian and Swedish healthcare system on home care.
Provision of services
The home care services in Canada are not publicly insured like physicians and hospital services governed by the Canada Health Act. The home care services are delivered through municipal, territorial and provincial governments. The Federal services cater to the home care needs of the First Nations and Inuit communities living in either reserved areas or designated communities. Home and community care assists the people to remain independent to improve their health status in an environment where they are able to cope. This makes it easier for the people to return to homes and receive treatment when necessary including rehabilitation, with caregivers supporting their needs.
The Swedish model also seeks to provide healthcare services to all citizens regardless of their ability to pay, with healthcare being considered a right. Similar to Canada’s approach provision of home care services is decentralized, where the county councils the local bodies that manage care provision. The municipalities are a level below the county councils and provide home care services or social assistance with the aim of integrating long-term care with these services (Anell, Glenngard & Merkur, 2012). The elderly are more likely to rely on home care services. The district or assistant nurses visit the elderly in their homes, and the patients also see the district doctors or nurses stationed at the regional health centers.
Financing of home care services
Home care service provision in Canada is fragmented since there is no single national policy directive that governs home care for all provinces and territories. The services vary depending on the jurisdiction. Home care has increasingly focused on private payers unlike before where the pubic payers were the source of financing (Martin-Matthews, Sims-Gould & Tong, 2013). There has been a substantial decrease in public funding of home care because neoliberal arguments of cost effectiveness. The downsizing has shifted the provision of home care support systems away from the provinces to the local regions. The delivery of home care consists of private agency service providers, public service providers, public- private partnerships and public paid services contracted to the public sector (Martin-Matthews, Sims-Gould & Tong, 2013).
The Swedish home care model has increasingly also been private funded like he Canadian system, with decline in coverage for services that are publicly funded. One of the major reasons for this is that there has been increased marketization. Th...