Patty Holynski knew nothing about caring for someone who uses a wheelchair until her husband Larry had a stroke on Valentine’s Day in 2018. The stroke left Larry, a heavy-duty mechanic, unable to walk and use his left hand.
“I didn’t want him going into a nursing home,” Patty said from the couple’s condo in Saskatoon.
Patty, now 58, left her job in social services to care for him — and was, as she put it, “thrown into a whole new world.”
Suddenly, she was learning about different types of wheelchairs, and how to make their home accessible for them. She was figuring out how to access home care programs for Larry to receive help with activities like bathing. She was finding recreational programs for adults with disabilities.
“You’re not offered anything,” she said. Most of the supports Larry has now — such as recreational programs and an accessible RV — are things she had to ask for and find. Very few organizations exist to proactively provide support.
The Saskatoon Council on Aging, a non-profit focused on helping seniors, aims to address this gap.
The council recently received a $99,000, one-year grant from the Toronto-based Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence. The centre, a program of the Azrieli Foundation, advocates for caregivers across Canada.
The council plans to use the funds to begin creating a provincial caregiving strategy that outlines how Saskatchewan could better support caregivers. Supports might include providing financial support for unpaid family caregivers, increasing the number of professional care providers in the province, and strengthening home-care services.
‘A growing need’
While based in Saskatoon, the Saskatoon Council on Aging has seen an increase in caregivers from across the province asking it for help in recent years, says June Gawdun, the council’s executive director.
“It’s a growing need,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that are aging, and they need a lot of help sometimes.”
The exact number of unpaid caregivers in Saskatchewan is unknown. But the 2021 census indicates that 17.5 per cent of the province’s population is over the age of 65. As this demographic ages, they will likely require more care, often from friends and relatives.
Currently, there is no organization devoted to supporting unpaid caregivers in Saskatchewan. Gawdun hopes the funding from the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence will help the Saskatoon Council on Aging create resources to help all unpaid caregivers in Saskatchewan.
The council currently runs monthly events for caregivers as well as an annual event to bring caregivers together. The new funding will enable it to run consultations with caregivers and health-care professionals about the needs of caregivers in Saskatchewan, to inform its provincial caregiving strategy.
“[Caregivers] shouldn’t be doing it alone,” said Gawdun, who is a long-distance caregiver to her mother who lives in Ontario. “We can provide support to them and resources, and hopefully that’ll make it a little bit easier for their caregiving journey.”
Today, Patty Holynski attends some of the council’s caregiving meetings. But when she began caring for Larry, she was largely alone.
She received no training on how to care for Larry after his stroke. Seven years later, she is confident in her abilities to help Larry with baths and toileting and transferring from his wheelchair.
Their pensions and provincial funding enable Patty to care for Larry, and to hire a private caregiver to provide care for Larry one day a week. The couple has joined a stroke recovery group and is making new friends. They travel in a wheelchair accessible RV that is outfitted with a hospital bed for Larry.
But Patty continues to have concerns.
She worries about who will care for Larry if she gets injured or sick. Larry, now 60, would still like to work, but has not been able to find a suitable job — especially since most workplaces are not wheelchair accessible. And it can be difficult to afford incontinence products Larry wears at recreational day programs.
“The money doesn’t last long,” Patty said.
Provincial matters
In the 2024 federal budget, Ottawa committed to begin consultations on a national caregiving strategy, something caregiving advocates have long requested.
But provinces also need to develop their own strategies, says Liv Mendelsohn, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence. Much of the supports caregivers need — such as health care, work leaves or home care services — come under provincial jurisdiction.
Caregivers are not concerned if support comes from the federal or provincial governments, Mendelsohn says. “They want quality care, and they want to be included in decision making, and they want to be adequately supported,” she said.
The Saskatoon Council on Aging has funded a survey of caregivers in Saskatchewan to ask them what their top needs were. Many of the 355 respondents identified that caregivers who live in areas outside of Saskatoon and Regina often struggle to access supports, such as reliable home care.
Caregivers also identified transportation into Regina and Saskatoon as a challenge. The Saskatoon Council on Aging wants the province to create a task force on rural caregiving to address these needs, says Gawdun.
‘Too exhausting’
Patty understands well the plight of rural caregivers. When Larry had his stroke, the couple was living on a farm 50 kilometres east of Saskatoon with their youngest son, a teenager at the time. Finding reliable home care was a struggle. The couple was ineligible for some home care programs because of their location. Keeping up with the farm became impossible.
Three years ago, the couple moved into a custom-built condo in Saskatoon. Their son, now in his 20s, still lives on the family farm, although the family rents out most of the farmland.
Patty’s mom, a widow, lives with the couple. She’s healthy, Patty says — something Patty does not take for granted. “My mom knows I’m not prepared to take care of two people,” she says. “There’s no way I could. It’s too exhausting.”
Yet despite spending nearly all her time caring for Larry, Patty says she does not see herself as a caregiver. “Yes, I look after him, but he’s still my husband,” she said. “I don’t consider myself his caregiver. I consider myself his wife, but I do the caregiver role.”
For his part, Larry says that his wife of 22 years does an excellent job fulfilling the marriage vow to love “in sickness and in health.”
He does not find it hard having Patty help him with personal tasks like bathing. “She does a very good job for me,” he said.
He just wishes there was more support to help her do it.
