SAFE Seniors

If an elderly person fell in front of you, how would you respond?

If you knew you could save a life, we know you’d want to help. Among older adults, falls are the number one cause of fractures, hospital admissions for trauma, loss of independence, and injury deaths.

Each year, 30 to 60 per cent of seniors suffer a fall, through accident or due to health conditions that leave them dizzy, lightheaded, or with poor eyesight.

If you knew you could save a life, we know you’d want to help.

When considering our aging population, it’s easy to see how this already significant problem will quickly become more critical before long.

A simple fall can have devastating effects on an older person. Unfortunately, it often takes only a momentary event, such as a fall, to remind us how vulnerable we actually are.

Medical alert services that protect people living alone from the consequences of falling are wonderful. In a perfect world, everyone would have access to such a service. Sadly, that is not today’s reality as many seniors are struggling to meet their basic financial needs for shelter, food, and medications on fixed incomes that are not keeping pace with everincreasing costs.

Thankfully, charitable giving makes it possible for seniors in need to access valuable programs and services they may otherwise not be able to afford.

You and your clients can always be there for them.

Maintaining independence and peace of mind goes hand in hand with enhanced quality of life. In 2016, the Eldercare Foundation partnered with Philips Lifeline to establish SAFE (Specialized Assistance for Elders), a medical alarm service to protect low income, at-risk older adults identified and qualified through Island Health’s Home and Community Care to ensure those with the greatest needs are helped.

Island Health Home and Community Care staff have told us that having the SAFE Lifeline service helps people feel more confident and enhances their lives enough to keep them out of hospital and out of residential care longer. “Those clients were isolated without much social support and having SAFE Lifeline was very reassuring to the clinicians involved, knowing there would be a way (for the senior) to call for help.”

Eldercare’s current annual commitment of $30,000 provides SAFE to 45 seniors annually, but the lengthy wait list tells us the need is much, much larger. The SAFE Lifeline Program currently serves at-risk seniors on Southern Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands but, through the generosity of charitable giving, we hope to expand this footprint to help more seniors stay safely in their own homes longer.

Charitable giving helps organizations like ours lend a helping hand and provide that peace of mind to those in need. One-time donations help meet immediate needs while multiyear pledges and estate bequests help us plan for future years and keep important programs, like SAFE, going and growing. www.gvef.org s Lori McLeod is Executive Director of Eldercare Foundation in Victoria, BC. Give a second chance at a happy life. . . there is no better gift you can make to an animal in need. Include a gift in your Will or designate a life insurance policy to the BC SPCA to set tails wagging! Visit us today at spca.bc.ca/foreverguardian, or contact Yolanda Benoit ybenoit@spca.bc.ca 1.800.665.1868

Charitable Registration # 11881 9036 RR0001