Recently, the NDP promised 2,000 more senior care beds for the shortage in Alberta. As if that addresses the whole crisis! We are 20,000 short and that’s just one issue only!
A senior placed in a home must surrender their pension to cover the cost for care. If by some chance they are in a lower-end facility, a $2,000 a month pension would barely suffice to cover their existence there.
Our government would still liquidate their assets and hold those funds in anticipation of “future needs” while the senior is without a budget for so much as a Christmas card for a grandchild.
Oh, but there’s more.
I have seen a senior who lived on the same street as a rest home get shipped off to another town due to “availability of beds.”
I have witnessed a couple of a 60-year marriage have to file separation papers so his needs could be covered at a long-term facility while she stayed behind in another.
Something is wrong when senior care costs them everything they ever had and would have preferred to cling to.
We need provision for seniors to be able to stay in their home towns, stay with their spouse, and we need affordability of their care.
Bailey Coltman
Red Deer