What is caregiving?

CCCE - Giving Care - An approach to a better caregiving landscape in Canada (2022)

It is confusing to use the name 'caregiving' to refer to both work and role. Caregivers (role) and care providers (role) experience caregiving (work) as a rewarding and challenging experience.

What is the work of caregiving?

  1. emotional support to care recipients
  2. changing clothes
  3. providing transportation
  4. managing care networks
  5. preparing food
The work of caregiving by family caregivers also includes:
  1. personal hygiene
  2. waste management, including medical waste
  3. housekeeping
  4. grocery shopping
  5. medical appointments, prescriptions, medical equipment
  6. nursing
  7. facilities maintenance
  8. facilities improvements
  9. relationship management: family, home support, home support nurses, family doctor, specialists
  10. groundskeeping
  11. transportation maintenance and repair
  12. banking, bill paying
  13. tax preparation and filing
CCCE states, "For every hour of professional care, caregivers provide three hours of care to family and friends." But I have to ask, how is that hour calculated? Is it based on the hours worked by professional health providers (doctors, nurses, specialists, direct support professionals and personal support workers), or does it include the care infrastructure that makes their work possible? 

It is not clear what is included in the role 'care provider'. Is it referring to all medical professionals in the healthcare system? Or is it focussed on the professionally employed caregiving worker?

I ask because for every hour of family caregiving, there is a necessary correlation to calculate the cost of the care infrastructure they provide, which is above and beyond the actual time they give to their care recipient.

What would the calculation be between health providers and caregivers if the care infrastructure was also calculated into the comparison? More to the point, how is that hour of family caregiving calculated? What is the measure of work that is being factored into that hour?

When they refer to 'support professionals' what are they including?

There is an expanded list of Caregivers responsibilities:
  1. personal care
  2. food preparation
  3. shopping
  4. housekeeping
  5. transportation
  6. care coordination
  7. health-care related tasks ie. dialysis, ventilator management
  8. advocating on behalf of the care recipient
  9. emotional support
  10. financial management
This list still does not account for caregivers providing the physical plant where this work is carried out: groundskeeping, property maintenance, property improvement, property management.

CCCE lists diverse identities and experiences of caregivers:
  1. born outside of Canada
  2. trans-national caregivers
  3. double-duty caregivers
  4. young caregivers
  5. racialized groups
  6. racialized women
  7. sandwich generation
Missing from this list:
  1. senior late-career / semi-retired caregivers (declining income)
  2. retired caregivers (fixed income)
The definition of caregiving needs to include providing the physical plant and the services that maintain that physical plant. We need to make sure we include mid-life and senior caregivers, in particular with regards to providing caregiving while aging out of the workforce, or on a fixed income.

When looking at the property value of providing in-home caregiving beds, we need to also look at property assessments, property tax, and house insurance; also the cost of borrowing for mortgage payments.

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