Globe and Mail - Private home services fill big need among seniors; Rapid expansion of home health care industry brings calls for regulation

As the country's population ages and the public health system bursts at the seams, more families are turning to private home-health care - an industry that has seen revenue double to about $6.8-billion since 1999.

That growth began with a trickle of mom-and-pop companies a decade or two ago. Now those firms as well as larger brands such as We Care Home Health Services and Omaha-based Home Instead Senior Care number in the hundreds. They're all fighting for a piece of a sector that can't keep up with demand: Ontario has more than 10,000 people on wait lists for home-care services, according to a report last week by the Ontario Health Coalition, and that trend is echoed throughout the country. …

But the bigger problem is oversight. Health care economist Erin Strumpf of McGill University is one of many who would like to see the sector more closely scrutinized. "If someone's going to come to your house and do things to you in your house that no one's around to see, it's certainly the sort of situation . . . where there's scope for regulation," she said.