Structural Facilitators and Barriers to Access to and Continuity of French-Language Healthcare and Social Services in Ontario's Champlain Region.

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine access to and continuity of French-language healthcare and social services in Ontario's Champlain region through an analytical framework that incorporates people seeking care, their caregivers and the linguistic component of care into a health and social service system bounded by community, organizational, political and symbolic structures. Experiences of French-speaking seniors seeking care and those of health and social service providers and managers from two qualitative exploratory studies are used to describe trajectories through the system. Participants exposed how, together with community vitality, issues within each of the system's symbolic, political or regulatory and organizational structures influence these trajectories. To meet the needs of francophone seniors, additional work is needed to increase French-language services coordination within the organizational, regulatory and policy structures of the health and social service system.