Advocates say recent reports by the auditor general show Alberta is failing its seniors.
Friends of Medicare and Public Interest Alberta point out that insufficient preparedness, severe care staffing shortages, and outdated infrastructure were among the key findings in the COVID-19 in Continuing Care Facilities report.
“These reports clearly lay out how we’ve failed seniors in long-term care, especially during the early days of the pandemic. But they also highlight the systemic issues we’ve been raising in seniors care in Alberta for many years. The infrastructure challenges, the chronic under-staffing, reliance on a precarious workforce without job security, or benefits or paid sick days,” said Chris Gallaway, Friends of Medicare executive director, in a statement.
“Ultimately, it all comes back to Alberta’s approach to long-term care which treats seniors as commodities, prioritizing profits over providing quality care.”
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Ron Rose, board president of the Alberta Council on Aging, said it’s good to have recommendations from the auditor general down in writing.
“I think we knew what the issues were and he confirmed for a lot of us what went on,” said Rose about the impact of COVID-19.
“Historically, our continuing care system relied on family and volunteers coming in to do a lot of the work and suddenly the door was locked to them and that put more strain on staff.”
He said The Seniors Care in Long-term Care Assessment of Implementation Report also found more work was still needed to address recommendations from the 2014 audit.
Alberta Health Services still needed to put a system in place to mitigate the risk of facilities being unable to provide the staff necessary for safe, quality resident care, and Alberta Health still needed to improve its public reporting on the long-term care system.
Friends of Medicare and Public Interest Alberta say decades of under-funding have spelled disaster for seniors.
Brad Lafortune, executive director of Public Interest Alberta, said Alberta should adopt the new national long-term care standards, bring back an independent Office of the Seniors Advocate, improve work conditions so that facilities aren’t relying on a low-paid precarious workforce, implement things like paid sick days for all workers, and take back control of the system by removing profits from the equation for seniors care.
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Minister of Health Jason Copping said improving care for seniors is a top priority for the province.
“The government has accepted all of the auditor general’s recommendations identified in both reports, and we are committed to undertaking this important work for the benefit of all Albertans,” Copping said in a statement.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
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