Health Care Assistant (HCA) Support

Puffin Services charges $42/hr for Health Care Assistant support, $42/hr for family respite relief care, and $38/hr for companion care. All three carry a three-hour minimum per visit, and the rate is the same in every municipality we serve.

Companion care is social and practical; HCA support is hands-on physical care. Puffin Services provides companion care at $38/hr for independent seniors who benefit from conversation, light home help, and getting out into the community. Health Care Assistant support is $42/hr and is delivered by certified HCAs for seniors who need help with mobility, personal care, and daily routines. If your parent needs help getting out of a chair, that is HCA. If they are managing fine but are alone too much, that is companion care.

Yes — Family Respite Relief Care, at $42/hr with a three-hour minimum. Puffin Services designed it for people already providing care themselves: our respite caregivers step into the routine you have established so you can work, rest, or travel. It is booked the same way as any other hourly service, for a single afternoon or on a regular schedule.

Yes. Puffin Services' Health Care Assistants are certified for personal care and trained in behaviour pacing for neurodegenerative conditions, including dementia and Alzheimer's. In practice that means help with bathing, dressing and moving safely, medication reminders on the schedule already in place, familiar meals, and the steadiness of the same routine each visit. It is $42/hr with a three-hour minimum, in the person's own home. What it is not is nursing care or a diagnosis — if what your family needs is clinical nursing, we will tell you so rather than take the booking.

Wherever scheduling allows, yes, and for dementia care we treat it as close to essential — a new person in the house every visit undoes much of the benefit for someone with memory loss. Puffin Services employs its caregivers rather than introducing contractors, which is what makes continuity possible to plan for. Where the regular caregiver is unwell or unavailable, finding the replacement is our problem rather than your family's.

Personal care and daily routine: safe transfers and mobility, bathing, dressing and toileting, medication reminders and symptom logging, and meal preparation adapted to a condition — low-sodium, diabetic-conscious, or mechanically soft. HCAs also provide cognitive support for neurodegenerative conditions. They do not perform nursing procedures, wound care or anything requiring a registered nurse.

Most families arrive at one of two moments: the person they care for has started needing help with things they managed alone a year ago, or the family carer has run out of road. Both are ordinary, and neither means a facility is the next step. Starting with a few hours a week — companion care at $38/hr, or HCA personal care at $42/hr where hands-on help is needed — is usually easier for everyone than starting when there is no choice left.

Family respite relief is $42/hr with a three-hour minimum, the same rate as Health Care Assistant support, because it is the same certified caregiver doing the same work — the difference is that the point of the booking is time off for you rather than a task list for them. A regular weekly block is the arrangement most families settle into.

Online, start to finish, at whatever hour suits you. Choose the service, the city, the date and the hours, tell us anything specific about your family, and pay on the site — there is no phone call, no callback and no waiting on a quote before you know the price. Hourly childcare, postpartum support, senior and adult support and event nannies all work this way, and nanny placement will too once it opens. Pediatric support is the exception: SLPA, OTA, behaviour intervention and autism respite are enquiry-only for now, and those pages say so. A phone line is there if you would rather use it — (604) 283-2829 — but nothing requires it.