Too few using compassionate care benefits, reforms needed.

Ottawa--The Compassionate Care Benefit Program has used up only 4% of the annual budget allocated for benefits, the Health Council of Canada reported. The Council reform of the "well-intentioned initiative" is tied in with Employment Insurance.

The Health Council suggests that the low rate of participation is related to the flaws in the structure and execution of the program. The paper suggests three main areas for improving the program.

* Expand the definition of "family member," to include siblings, grandparents, step-children, step-parents, aunts, uncles, grandchildren (the government has proposed amendments along these lines);

* Increase the length of the benefit from the current six weeks to better reflect the range of patient experience with illness (and dying);

* Advertise and educate the public about the program so more people know it is available.

The Compassionate Care Benefit is linked to Employment Insurance. Currently, a number of Canadians who do not qualify for EI-the unemployed, self-employed, part-time, temporary, contractual or seasonal employees with insufficient hours of work-do not qualify.

According to Analysis and Evaluation Compassionate Care Benefit, prepared for the Council by Katie Osborne and Naomi Margoan: "A long-standing criticism of the Compassionate Care Benefit Program is that it fails to alleviate the economic stress of women who both constitute the large majority of caregivers and disproportionately fall within the classes of people ineligible to receive the benefit. This criticism is at least partially confirmed in the Compassionate Care Benefit post implementation figures that show the vast majority of claimants are women (71 per cent)." www.hcc-ccs.com