Manitoba's Home Care Leadership Team is inviting Manitobans to share their perspectives through an online consultation. Team leader Reg Toews and his group have been tasked with developing recommendations for how the home care system should be revamped to deal with a coming spike in retirees which will place a lot of pressure on hospitals and personal care homes. He says the consultation process is well underway with many of those in the system.

"I'm in the interviewing stage now and have been interviewing a cross-section in three regions, Southern and Interlake-Eastern and Winnipeg. We'll do the other two in the New Year. That begins to provide a substantial amount of perspective information. Thirdly, I'm working together with a small group of staff, seconded staff, as we're beginning to grind the data, the hard data analysis etc."

Toews says all of that work is progressing well but he wants to widen the scope of input to include people who have used the home care system or have family or friends who have used to system.

"We're looking for what has been their experience and if they could help us think into the future from that experience, whatever the issues were. But they can also share positive stories because, as I do the interviewing, I hear both and frequently from the same individual; this worked well but this isn't working so well. Some of that then becomes raw material for trying to determine what the future might look like. My project is not set up to deal with complaints or to make corrections to the system. We're very concerned though that we get input from the client and the caregiver as opposed to just the staff."

To share thoughts and perspectives on home care, visit www.gov.mb.ca/health/homecare/consultation.html before Jan. 15, 2016.