Topic
9 - Eliminating Surprises
Excerpt from: Let’s
Talk - The Care-Years (Taking Care of Our Parents, Planning for
Ourselves)
Personal Anecdote—Patty Randall,
caregiver-daughter
“Long-Term Care: A FINANCIAL TSUNAMI”
Pre-Long-Term-Care Times: January 3, 1996 - I had two parents both in their mid-eighties, retired for 24 years, living comfortably - they owned their own home, drove their own vehicles; they had their own bank accounts for personal activities, a basic monthly household budget as low income seniors and still had some small savings remaining for larger annual and unexpected expenses - their later retirement years had been going along as expected.
January 4, 1996: The Beginning : What a difference a moment makes! 9:30 AM icy driveway - my Dad fell, a lifestyle turning point- our family's long-term care years officially started.
February 1-Within the one month, I had two dependent parents requiring care in their own home with a live-in caregiver (home renovations of approximately $3,000 were required immediately to accommodate a live-in caregiver and $3,850.63 of special equipment was required for 'first stage' home safety and health needs--as time went on, $6,000 - $10,000 more for special equipment was also necessary); our roles changed, mine went from loving daughter to loving daughter-caregiver-care guide. Budgets were established as the costs of long-term care aging needs, I thought, were becoming apparent, but the real financial challenges were yet to come.
1996: Care-Year One: Our family's budget for Care-Year #1 (1996) increased over 200% from the pre-care retirement times. Not surprising, my parents' retirement savings were going down rapidly just when their care-needs were increasing rapidly--as a family we had become 'financially interdependent' now.
1997: Our care-years journey continued : Both my parents, requiring care on a full-time basis, had two distinct sets of care expenses now. One parent (Dad) now needed residency in a nursing home caremanor and the other (Mum) remained in her own home with a full-time live-in caregiver. Our family's budget for Care-Year #2 had increased an unbelievable 359% from the pre-long-term care retirement times. The long-term financial challenges were becoming obvious.
The 'care portion only' of our household budget started to explode at this point in time. What were our family's choices--together we now had to budget for: $869 of on-going 'extras' required; plus Dad's 'basic monthly nursing home cost' of $3,400+ depending on his needs each month; plus Mum's 'at-home care-related caregiver fees and care expenses' of several thousand per month in order for her to remain in her own home (~$4,500). Added to those expenses, of course there were the 'regular living expenses' that we all have in order to run a household.
What about two parents in living in two different care-environments - an 'involuntary separation'. I was totally unprepared for care costs for two parents living in two separate environments -- two budgets each month, one for my Dad to pay for his nursing home care and one for my mother to pay for her at-home care.at the same time! You do the math if you want to estimate these costs per month for a family with both parents needing care in two locations; now do the math for one year; now several years! (Be prepared, this is no time be an ostrich-plan, lots to loose if you don't and much to gain if you do.)
2005-Year #10: Our budget had kept increasing over the years, as more and more care was required (this makes sense but is often forgotten when calculating the cost of care overall-costs are going up when income is going down in our 'old-old' years).
We have no choices; our parents need care -- a financial tsunami indeed!
Our parents-daughter care-journey ended: Dad died in 1998 and Mum several years later, in mid 2005. ( Patty married in July 2005, one month prior to her mother's death, and in January of 2006 became a care-manager along with her husband of her mother-in-law whom they relocated to an independent-assisted living residence in Vancouver to be closer to them. Shockingly, in January of 2007, Patty's husband became ill and she became his principal caregiver over the next year plus until his death in mid 2008...Patty now continues as the foremost care-manager for her mother-in-law.)
My conclusions regarding the costs of care:
- Care in one's own home and in an nursing home is costly
- Care without government assistance is costly
- Care with government assistance, which is very helpful, is still costly (A family must recognize its dependency and its high risks when relying on government assistance services and programs for long-term care needs)
- Because of the costs associated with care, adult children for the most part will probably have to assist with care costs of an elderly parent(s)
- The financial costs of care, without planning, strike Canadian families like a tsunami
To this day, I believe that as Canadians we are ill prepared for this time in our parents' lives and their own. I know I was and have since learned that there are many more families just like mine across the country - we all are in need of an education on the long-term care phase of our lives and what that stage entails emotionally, organizationally and financially.
Canadians want to be independent, we want information, we want to do the right thing...we need to know the facts since we are living so much longer now, we need to be educated about this new issue in our country--long-term care! |
