Three communities get together to discuss transit options for seniors

The Seine River Services for Seniors 2024 AGM was heavily focused on transportation options for seniors. 

The meeting featured a panel made up of municipal and community leaders in Steinbach, the RM of La Broquerie, and the town and RM of Ste. Anne. 

Heather Dean, President of Seine River Services for Seniors, says it was a great opportunity to improve collaboration between these communities. 

“It was a way of bringing people together, talking about a particular topic, bringing in experts in the area, and by virtue of that, enhancing awareness of all of the services that we provide.” 

The two ‘experts’ in the panel were Louise Hutton, Board Chair of Transportation Options Network for Seniors (TONS), and Audrey Harder, Executive Director of the Pat Porter. 

Other panelists were the CEO of Villa Youville in Ste. Anne, the President of the Paradise Village Residents Association, and a variety of elected officials. 

The Seine River Services for Seniors transportation program is fully based on volunteers. 

They do not have a Handivan or wheelchair accessible vans. 

“We rely on mostly seniors, but some younger people, who offer their driving services in their own cars to seniors who can't drive anymore.” 

Dean says 80 per cent of the ride requests they get at Seine River Services are for medical reasons, and 60 per cent of the rides they provide are to Winnipeg. 

“It might be for dialysis, it might be for CancerCare radiation or chemotherapy, or an appointment at CancerCare Manitoba. And most of that is in Winnipeg—the chemotherapy might be in Bethesda.” 

Seine River Services currently has seven volunteers who are willing to drive seniors to wherever they need to go. Villa Youville has around seven drivers, and Paradise Village has five. 

Dean lists the various reasons seniors call them for a ride. 

“Sometimes for groceries, sometimes for attending a funeral, or attending a church service, but mostly medical. It's critical that the seniors be able to get to their medical appointments.” 

Sometimes the three organizations borrow each other's volunteers if none of their own volunteers are available to give a ride. 

“That was the reason why on the panel, we wanted to have Paradise Village and Villa Youville represented there, to talk about how we can further collaborate if there's someone who's in a crisis.” 

Dean says just this month, there was a senior who broke their hip and was on dialysis and needed to get to Steinbach three times a week. 

“So those are the kinds of circumstances that happen all the time, where suddenly someone needs to have help in getting to their medical appointments.” 

She adds that seniors in general like to be independent, and the volunteer driver system helps with that. 

"They don't want to have to rely on family and friends. They want to live their lives with dignity and be self-sufficient, but in some cases it's just not possible.” 

The majority of the time, they are able to get a volunteer to drive, but sometimes seniors have to reschedule their appointments. 

“One senior recently had to cancel a dental appointment three times because we couldn't find a driver, so the availability of drivers, particularly on a short-term notice, is one issue.” 

Dean says their other issue is that they don't have a ramp van or a volunteer driver with a ramp van. 

“So if someone's living at home and is dependent on a wheelchair, we can't provide that service.” 

There was a brainstorming session during the meeting to come up with ideas Seine River Services, Paradise Village, and Villa Youville could implement to collaborate better. 

Dean says they need to have a communication system that is better than what they currently have. 

“The sense of the meeting was the pride of the programs we do have, but there also was a recognition that we need to share and know when there's someone who really is in desperate need.” 

Another point that arose was that there are free resources online that volunteers can use to improve their sensitivity and knowledge when it comes to driving seniors with dementia. 

“It's really important that the drivers are aware and patient with some of the seniors that they may be driving. And TONS, they have excellent training resources for volunteer drivers. And there was a recognition that that is a really important resource for all our volunteer drivers in the area.” 

They are still searching for a solution to transport people with wheelchairs. 

“To move forward, we need to perhaps get together in the fall as stakeholders regarding transportation for seniors, that could look at the potential for a wheelchair accessible program.” 

Dean notes there may be car sharing programs coming to the area. 

“They're still waiting for funding from Villa Youville to have car sharing where it wouldn't be the volunteer car that they're driving, but a car share.” 

She mentions the Buffalo Point Piney Rent and Ride Transit Initiative, as they have an electric car 80 per cent funded by the federal government. 

“That may be a program that may be interesting for our area as well.”