Newfoundland and Labrador’s Office of the Seniors’ Advocate (OSA) has released its 2024-2025 Status Report on Recommendations. This fourth annual report represents our ongoing commitment to report publicly on the status of outstanding OSA recommendations. This report covers the period of April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025.

The report highlights that government has made progress on the recommendations of the Office of the Seniors’ Advocate; however, most of that progress relates to recommendations made in 2019. The majority of the outstanding recommendations in this status report were made in the What Golden Years? report in November 2023 and relate to two main areas:

1. Helping seniors with cost of living challenges. NL seniors have the lowest median income in the country. Further, NL seniors have the highest usage of the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), an indicator of poverty, at 44 per cent provincially versus 32 per cent nationally. Poverty is even more pronounced when you look at regional data, with seniors in Central and Western NL receiving GIS at a rate of 59 and 54 per cent respectively.
2. Alleviating the financial stress seniors are experiencing trying to pay for home support services. The majority of provinces and territories in Canada provide home support to seniors free of charge. Unfortunately, Newfoundland and Labrador is not one of those provinces. Every senior, regardless of their income, must pay some or all of the cost of their home support. Many simply cannot, and try to do without, resulting in poorer health outcomes and potentially earlier admission to out-of-home care.

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“Overall, I am pleased that most recommendations included in this status report are advancing. However, I remain quite concerned that there is no evidence that our recommendations from the 2023 report, to make home support more financially accessible to seniors, are progressing. Seniors are struggling to access home support services and grappling with the dilemma of how to pay for those services. When a senior is forced to move from their home into a care facility to have care needs met, we have failed them.”
Susan Walsh
Seniors’ Advocate Newfoundland and Labrador

The Report: www.seniorsadvocatenl.ca/pdfs/StatusReportOnRecommendations2024-25.pdf

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Media contact
Arlene Mullins
Administrative Officer
709- 729-6603, 1-833-729-6603 (toll-free)
seniorsadvocate@seniorsadvocatenl.ca