Media
Chronicle Journal
June 23, 2001
Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office pushes for overdue increase in the Personal Needs Allowance
The Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office (PPAO) is an arms-length program of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term care established in 1983 to protect the legal and civil rights of patients in the current and former provincial psychiatric hospitals.
The PPAO has been advocating for an increase in the Personal Needs Allowance (PNA) as it has not been increased in more than a decade. The PNA is intended to assist individuals residing in psychiatric facilities, long-term care facilities, hostels, shelters and other specific types of housing to meet their incidental costs other than those provided by the facility. These costs may include clothing, shoes, haircuts, hygiene products, nutritional supplements and other items related to basic comfort and quality of life.
The PPAO believes that providing individuals with the means to purchase the basic necessities of life provides them with a level of dignity and self-respect. The PNA of $122 a month or $3.75 per day that clients are provided with has not kept pace with cost of living increases and during the past decade the cost of most consumer goods has increased. The PPAO has recommended that the PNA be raised to !160 a month or $5.30 per day, effective immediately.
Residents or provincial psychiatric facilities, hostels and shelters, long-term care facilities and other specific types of housing would benefit from such an increase. While the PPAO provides services to inpatients of provincial psychiatric facilities and those recently divested, we are concerned about the plight of tens of thousands of others affected by the PNA and who would benefit from an increase.
In keeping with its mandate, the PPAO is assisting its clients to self-advocate for an increase in the PNA. Since January 2001 many individuals have written to the Ministry of Community and Social Services advocating for an increase. Most recently individuals have started to contact their MPPs in an attempt to enlist their support.
The PPAO believes that after more than a decade without an increase it is time for action and for the PNA to be increased to $160.
Pauline Bodnar
Patient Advocate
Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office
Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital
Thunder Bay
