A petition with 6,890 signatures to save Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor from closure was tabled in the legislature on Monday.
Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann brought forward the petition.
On Tuesday, Swann questioned why the province would close needed long-term care beds and leave people in inappropriate care settings.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Swann said.
“It’s one of a number of issues plaguing the system and having reverberations through emergency departments, doctors’ offices, home-care services, because people are not getting into the appropriate level of care, and is certainly adding misery and risk to people’s lives.”
He urged the public to maintain pressure on the province to reverse its decision.
The province is shutting down publicly-funded and publicly-operated Valley Park Manor and Red Deer Nursing Home with the opening of the new publicly-funded and privately-operated Extendicare Michener Hill.
For months, AUPE members and the public have protested the closure of the two aging public nursing homes and their 216 long-term care beds while people remain on a waiting list for long-term care.
Extendicare will have 220 long-term care beds — an increase of only four beds — and 60 designated assisted living beds for people with higher health needs, but do not yet need to go into long-term care.
Sam Denhaan, president of Central Alberta Council on Aging, who was in the legislature gallery for the petition presentation, was disappointed by the indifference he said was shown by Conservative MLAs.
Denhaan urged the provincial government to recognize the serious lack of long-term care beds and respond to the petition.
“This is something we’re doing on behalf of the community. We’re not doing it for ourselves,” Denhaan said on Tuesday.
Other members of the council, Friends of Medicare and Alberta Union of Provincial Employees were also in attendance. Swann and NDP MLA Rachel Notley introduced the delegation during the legislature session.
Efforts to keep the nursing homes open will continue with a public rally to save Valley Park Manor nursing home on Nov. 3 at 3:30 p.m. at 5010 43rd St., across from the Greyhound bus station.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com