Following the publication of a report on the state of seniors’ health across the Outaouais earlier this month, Outaouais healthcare authority CISSSO has shared Pontiac-specific statistics that offer greater insight into the health of residents aged 65 and older in this slice of the region.
At an event hosted in Campbell’s Bay on May 22, representatives of the local healthcare network shared key findings with the 110 seniors from across the Pontiac who gathered to discuss challenges associated with aging in this region and brainstorm solutions.
Overall, the report found life expectancy in the Pontiac to be lower than the regional average (79.4 in the Pontiac vs. 81.1 across the Outaouais), the portion of people without a secondary degree to be higher (by 8 per cent), the percentage of smokers to be higher (20.9 per cent vs. 14.8 per cent), and the average income to be lower ($27,200 in the Pontiac vs. $31,400 Outaouais-wide).
On the other hand, 53.1 per cent of Pontiac seniors claim to be more or less satisfied with their social life, compared to 49.7 per cent Outaouais-wide.
“For us, it’s not new information, but to be able to put a number on certain things can help encourage partners and other organizations to work with us,” said Nicole Boucher-Larivière, CISSSO’s director of health and social services for the Pontiac.
“For example, the 40 per cent of people not having a high school diploma. Well it can help us pass the message that we need to adapt the way we communicate with our population to make sure the message is properly getting out there.”
She said the numbers that jump out for her are those that shine a light on the state of respiratory and cardiovascular illness in the region.
Short-term hospitalizations for chronic illness of the respiratory, digestive and circulatory systems are higher in the Pontiac than across the Outaouais.
Per 10,000 people, 397 short-term hospitalizations in the Pontiac were caused by chronic illness related to the circulatory system, as compared to 251.7 per 10,000 across the Outaouais.
Likewise, short-term hospitalizations for chronic respiratory illness are at 184 per 10,000 people in the Pontiac, while the Outaouais’ average is 129 per 10,000.
Boucher-Larivière said while these higher numbers are in part due to the fact that doctors at the Pontiac hospital may in some cases retain patients who live far from the hospital longer than needed to make follow-ups easier, there is more to the story.
“Some of the most important [numbers] for me are the problems with respiratory and heart conditions we have in the area. We’re above average by a lot, and we know that our consummation of cigarettes and vaping is through the roof, but they are directly related, and it’s not always seen that way,” she said.
“Our life expectancy is down by 1.5 years for that specific reason. So we need to work on cardiac issues and chronic respiratory diseases to bring back the healthy life expectancy for that population.”
In the Pontiac, 3.6 per cent more deaths of people 65 and over are caused by cancer than across the Outaouais, and 4.5 per cent more deaths are caused by heart disease.
Boucher-Larivière said one big challenge to improving the local population’s cardiac and respiratory health is the use of vapes instead of cigarettes.
“[People are] vaping in the car with their kids, in their house with their 85-year-old mom, people are vaping thinking because there’s no smell for the people around them, but it’s just as dangerous, if not more. That information is not out there.”
Lack of transport, communication key challenges
Following CISSSO’s presentation, attendees were invited to discuss strengths, challenges, and possible strategies for improving access to three key determiners of a healthy lifestyle: physical activity, isolation and loneliness, and food security.
At one table, a group from the Chapeau and Chichester area discussed the lack of exercise options for seniors in the upper Pontiac, as well as the lack of options for socialization. While the day centre offers weekly exercise classes, some felt they could use more frequent opportunities to get out of the house.
“We were hoping to get better service than we have in the west end of Pontiac. The service is not real bad, but it’s not good,” said 86-year-old Earl Lapine, who had traveled to the event with his 97-year-old brother and 87-year-old friend. “There’s not enough people [up there] to make it worthwhile for them to come. I think that is the problem [ . . . ] I’d like them to be up more to take us out.”
At another table, Georgette Robitaille of Bryson shared quite the opposite experience, noting the local Golden Age Club offers exercise classes several times a week, and then on the off days, she does exercises at home. She said this routine, combined with the frequent visits she has with her family and the time she spends with her friends make it possible for her to keep a positive outlook as she gets older.
“I’m never anxious of aging. I like to say I’m young at heart, as long as I can.”
While the region’s many support networks, including Golden Age clubs and Lions clubs, were highlighted as local strengths, most discussions eventually came back to the need for more transportation services to ensure seniors are able to get access to the many services they need, get groceries, and see their friends, and better communication strategies that can help seniors stay in the know.
Limitations to the numbers
The data used by CISSSO to produce this study was collected by the government of Quebec through various means but is largely based on numbers from the last census, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and from information gathered through telephone surveys.
Bristol senior Val Twolan-Graham raised concerns with how the data was collected, asking specifically about how many people were surveyed, and in what age group.
“When it’s presented as data from just 65 on, there could be a huge amount of fluctuation between answers of a 66-year-old and an 87-year-old in a community,” she said explaining that, based on her work organizing various supports for seniors in her own community, she knows that the needs of a 66-year-old, such as her self, will be fairly different from the needs of older seniors.
She also flagged concerns with the age of the data used in the report, a concern echoed by Boucher-Larivière.
“The difficulty we have, because it’s done at a provincial level, is there’s a three year delay before we get the numbers, and then we need a year to analyse and put into a form that can be digested, so there’s always a four year delay,” Boucher-Larivière said, noting the pandemic will have skewed certain statistics used.
“We’d like to find funding to do a local survey so we could have the numbers right away.”
