Emergency Care For Seniors Program

The Cause

Imagine you got the call that your parent or grandparent had been admitted to the hospital. The first thing you would do after making sure they were alright would be to start a list of thing they would need and putting together a care package of essential items to bring them. Now imagine what it is like for those seniors who don’t have children or grandchildren who are able to bring them even the most basic of items.

Every day seniors enter the hospitals and long term care facilities, for many of these seniors they have arrived wearing nothing but their pyjamas. Some have come from their own homes, while some come from the homeless shelter system or the street. For those seniors who have no family or friends to support them they end up alone without even the basic necessities of life. They do not have so much as a pair of socks, a clean pair of underwear or a toothbrush.

Our program aims to provide basic essentials to each senior that depending on the individual situation would include: several days’ worth of clothing; pants, tops, undergarments, socks and shoes or non- slip slippers. The package would also include a toiletry kit that was appropriate to the seniors needs and include shampoo, a hairbrush, a toothbrush and toothpaste and deodorant. We will also include something such as a handmade get well card or art from school kids to brighten their room and let the senior know that someone cares about them.

Who Will it Benefit?

Seniors Secret Service provides a very unique and important service to the community. We ensure that some of Calgary’s most vulnerable citizens are not forgotten. Our seniors are alone for different reasons, some have children who may not live in the city or who choose to not participate in their lives. Many are widows/widowers, who have simply outlived their friends and family. Some of our seniors never married or had children and now find themselves alone. Whatever the reason, we work with our partner agencies to ensure that the senior feels cared for. While it is emotionally important for the seniors we support to feel special, it is also important that we provide them with items that are useful and that they may not be able to provide for themselves. Although it is not a requirement for either of our programs, many of our seniors live on a very low income.

We hope to help 170 isolated seniors in the first year of our Emergency Care program. Seniors Secret Service currently works with 88 partner agencies in the city of Calgary and the surrounding rural communities. We will rely on our partner agencies and area hospitals to send us the referrals of seniors who are in need of our help.