It’s Quebec Meals on Wheels Week, did you know? Probably not.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Meals on Wheels is a bit like a toaster. They are part of everyday life, we see them without seeing them and as long as they work, who cares? Only here, your toaster needs help. Its two stainless steel compartments are no longer enough to feed your large family and sometimes it crackles and smokes. Your toaster is overheating!
Meals on Wheels have been warning successive governments for many years about the worrying underfunding they suffer from, given the constant increase in the senior population.
Over the past two years, the teams, like their colleagues in the health network, have gone to the front to fight this invisible enemy that has killed more than 13,000 Quebecers, mostly elderly people. Meals on Wheels save lives, one meal at a time, but they do it quietly, no matter what.
The 300 Meals on Wheels in Quebec, their 10,000 volunteers and the thousand salaried employees who work there, can’t take it anymore. They produced more than 3.6 million meals last year. More than 50% of organizations are in dire need of manpower, whether salaried or voluntary. The demand for meals has increased by an average of 30% across the province and the rising cost of living is putting enormous pressure on it. So the teams work faster, even faster to meet the essential needs of seniors.
When your toaster breaks down, you’re a little disappointed, you blame it on planned obsolescence, and then you buy another one. If meals on wheels stop working, 30,000 Quebecers with a loss of autonomy will lose their daily support.
This week is Quebec Meals on Wheels Week. This is also the week when the government tabled its budget. The Regroupement des meals-on-wheels of Quebec is worried.
Priority does not seem, once again, to be given to home care organizations, which have no certainty as to the use of the 37.1 million added for the mission of community health and social services organizations.
It’s high time to give Meals on Wheels some attention and love, because their presence is not guaranteed. Last year, nine of them closed, leaving entire territories unresolved. Meals on wheels, if nothing is done, could one day disappear…
Let’s celebrate Quebec Meals on Wheels Week together, while we still can.