Age Friendly Manitoba

Results Of The Community Consultation, Partnership Provides New Service In Pinawa...

by Marsha Sheppard, Volunteer And Resident Of Pinawa

Pinawa and Age-Friendly Communities in Manitoba

The Seniors and Healthy Aging Secretariat has chosen Pinawa as one of its Pilot communities for the Age-Friendly Communities in Manitoba Initiative. As a member of the Pinawa Committee, I would like to tell you a little more about how we are involved and some of the events that have taken place as well as the challenges ahead.

Age-Friendly means making day to day things easier for all ages, not just Seniors – think about it, if you don’t have the strength to open the Post office door, then neither does a child. Sometimes it’s not strength but just the angle the force needs to be applied. Issues like font size in printed materials such as our phone books has been raised, and we’ll see how MTS will respond.

The University of Manitoba’s Centre on Aging and the Secretariat came to Pinawa in November and carried out a survey with an invited focus group to give us some ideas of how we could make Pinawa more age-friendly. Here are the results of questions that were asked about housing, transportation, infrastructure, safety, social participation and recreation, work force participation, information/advocacy, respect and social inclusion and health and community services.

Results of our First Pinawa Age-Friendly Questionnaire

Score of >70% - what we do well

Seniors feel safe walking alone, day or night
Seniors are generally treated with respect
Seniors have enough volunteer opportunities
Local parks and walking trails are accessible to seniors
Information about community events, services and programs by various organizations is readily accessible
Snow clearing is done in a timely manner

Score of < 20% - what we could improve

Health care services not provided in Pinawa are not convenient to access – i.e. services too far away, appointment times not convenient
Housing for seniors is not plentiful or affordable
Subsidized housing for low-income seniors is not sufficient
Waiting times to get into senior housing, such as assisted living, are not reasonable and not available in Pinawa
Public transportation to and from medical appointments is not sufficient
Public transportation to and from medical appointments for those individuals with disabilities is not sufficient
Public transportation to shopping, senior centres, church, cultural events is not available
There are not enough seniors’ advocacy services available
There are not enough paid job opportunities for seniors
There is no congregate meal program or Meals on Wheels program available
Public telephone answering services are not adapted to the needs of seniors – i.e. instructions are not given slowly or clearly enough

Don’t know >30% - the focus group wasn’t certain of these

Whether planning processes specifically consider needs of seniors
Whether the home care services for seniors are sufficient
Whether services that help seniors (lawn care, garbage help, snow clearing, etc.) are sufficient

Priorities areas were then identified by the participants as:

Building accessibility
Recreation/social activities
Civic participation/social inclusion
Sidewalks
Transportation
Building maintenance, and
Housing

Grants are available to fix some of the infrastructure issues, such as heavy access doors, sidewalks, and modification of curbs for strollers and scooters. Other things require programs to be set up, such as congregate meals, grocery and pharmacy delivery and Meals on Wheels.

Having said that, I want you to know that we have a very dedicated Age-Friendly Committee set up to initiate some improvements in Pinawa. The Chair is Clay McMurren, and the members are Marsha Sheppard, Lloyd Rattai, Alf Wikjord, and Bill Early. The Committee has the full support of Council and already several things have been put on the Public Works list of “to dos” for the coming summer. In addition, the Pinawa Chamber of Commerce will be working with businesses to help make them more accessible and age-friendly.

Stay tuned for more age-friendly initiatives and speak to one of the Committee if you have some suggestions as to what could make Pinawa more Age-Friendly.

AGE-FRIENDLY PINAWA AND SOLO MARKET TEAM-UP TO DELIVER GROCERIES

Age-Friendly Pinawa and Solo Market want to make grocery, pharmacy, and deli shopping a little easier for seniors. If you would like to have your groceries gathered for you and delivered, here’s the scoop and the process!

Phone Pat Porth, Resource Co-ordinator with Two Rivers Seniors
(345-1227) and ask to be put on the personal grocery-shopping list. Pat then arranges for a driver to deliver your groceries and allows Solo Market to know how many customers they have to shop for. There is a fee of $5.00 to pay the driver.

Then starting May 12 – on any Tuesday, which allows you your Seniors discount, call the Solo store (753-2697) between 2 and 4 pm only and recite your grocery list to them. Please specify quantities and sizes for all items i.e. 3 bananas, 5 apples, and 1 lb or 500 kg of hamburger. On Thursday the driver (which you will pay) will deliver your groceries around lunchtime. You can set up an account with the Solo store (ask for Dean at Solo) or you can give them a credit card number when you phone in your grocery list. Your pharmacy items can be delivered at the same time and you can also specify freshly made deli items to accompany your groceries.

For more details on the service and to place your name on the list call Pat Porth at 345-1227.

Back to the Front Page April 2009...