By SUSAN ZIELINSKI
Advocate staff
The Progressive Conservatives say they are committed to building 1,000 new continuing care beds in the province each year, but have no plans to reopen Red Deer Nursing Home.
However, Red Deer North Tory incumbent Mary Anne Jablonski said the party is discussing how Valley Park Manor, also closed in 2010, could be used for rehabilitation for some acute hospital patients.
Jablonski said Red Deer Nursing Home has asbestos so updating the facility would not be good.
“We don’t believe Red Deer Nursing Home is capable of being renovated for anything,” said Jablonski at a provincial election forum hosted by Central Alberta Council on Aging at the Golden Circle on Tuesday.
About 120 people, mostly seniors, attended the forum featuring candidates for Red Deer North and Red Deer South.
Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor, both publicly operated facilities, were closed by the Tories when Extendicare Michener Hill opened a privately-operated and publicly-funded facility.
Central Alberta seniors fought to keep the older facilities open to increase the number of available long-term care beds.
Red Deer South NDP candidate Lorna Watkinson-Zimmer, who participated in closure protests, said it was a crime to lose them.
“Our shop downtown was full of asbestos. We took it out and we rebuilt it,” said Watkinson-Zimmer, who owns Comforts the Sole shoe store downtown.
Jablonski said Red Deer is one of two communities chosen as the site of a new continuing care model that will allow seniors to age in place even if their health care needs increase. Construction of Villa Marie is to begin this spring.
Red Deer North Liberal candidate Michael Dawe said Red Deer, with a population of about 90,000, has the same number of nursing home beds it did when it had 40,000 residents.
“Provincewide, there’s 54 less nursing home beds than there were four years ago,” Dawe said.
“Twice on the eve of an election (the PCs) promised a long-term continuum of care facility, called the Hewson Centre. It’s still a grassy parking lot,” Dawe said about the land used for overflow parking for the Red Deer Public Market.
Dawe said standards of seniors care needs to be strengthened.
“(Tories) talk about bringing in new models to provide more efficiency. But in fact what it often means is there is a reduction in standards, both in terms of quantity and quality of service provided.
“In many cases there aren’t enough staff and they don’t have the support and training they need to do the jobs they are asked to do.”
Red Deer South Wildrose candidate Nathan Stephan said long-term care needs to be a priority. Without enough beds, it causes problems that trickle through the health-care system, which has been mismanaged by the PCs, he said.
Alberta spends more on health care than most provinces, he said.
“We need to prioritize our spending. Sometimes it’s not about how much you spend, but where you spend it.”
Stephan said as far as reopening Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor, the condition of the buildings would have to be assessed to determine if it’s cost-effective to retrofit.
The cost of electricity deregulation to Albertans was one of several other questions posed to candidates at the forum.
Red Deer South incumbent Progressive Conservative Cal Dallas said higher costs have been due to electrical transmission and delivery, which are regulated. Premier Alison Redford has promised a review.
Red Deer South Alberta Party candidate Serge Gingras said people can see on their power bill how companies have added extra delivery and administration charges.
“Allowing the construction of new power lines and having private companies build it, and then making us pay for it for the next 30 years, will only add to (costs),” Gingras said.
The NDP want power to be re-regulated.
“Let’s bring the power costs back down so working families in Alberta don’t have to struggle as much as they do. Fifty to $80 a month is a big deal to a lot of Albertans,” said Red Deer North NDP candidate Derrek Seelinger.
Red Deer South Liberal candidate Jason Chilibeck said it’s unfair that energy companies were only fined “a tiny smidgen” compared to the money they made by manipulating the energy market to their advantage.
Red Deer North Alberta Party candidate Brent Chalmers and Red Deer North Wildrose candidate Randy Weins were unable to attend the forum.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com