EDMONTON - Friends of Medicare and Public Interest Alberta, the two advocacy organizations behind the campaign Alberta Seniors Deserve Better, have sent a letter to Jeremy Nixon, the newly-appointed Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services. The groups are demanding to meet with the minister to urgently address the state of continuing care.
“All Albertans should expect to experience a high quality of life at any age,” said Chris Gallaway, Executive Director of Friends of Medicare. “As our seniors age, their health care needs increase in both severity and diversity. Frankly, these needs are not being met. Alberta’s seniors deserve better than to be treated like commodities for sale to a for-profit care system.”
“The continuing care system has been in crisis for decades, and this has only been exacerbated by the pandemic,” said Bradley Lafortune, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. “We have access to years of public reviews and multiple independent research reports that have highlighted significant failures and inadequacies of the system. The government could immediately take steps to better the system, such as legislated staff-to-patient ratios.”
“Instead, the UCP have made a bad situation even worse,” added Lafortune. “Care available to senior Albertans continues to deteriorate as the government offloads the costs from health care budgets onto seniors and their families, and contracts with private, for-profit corporations to operate congregate care facilities and home care services.”
“Every dollar that goes into profits is a dollar taken away from seniors’ care,” said Gallaway. “We’ve had enough of this disregard for seniors in our province and country. We have the solutions, we just need the government to listen and act now. Alberta seniors deserve better.”