Ottawa should fund long-term care as part of national health program, UNA president says

Canada's premiers need to tell the federal government it must come back to the negotiating table with a national health plan that includes public funding for long-term care, home care, palliative care and pharmacare, United Nurses of Alberta President Heather Smith told a news conference today.

During the news conference on a provincial continuing care "concept paper" that emphasizes private seniors' care services, Smith observed that the Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax later this month would be an ideal opportunity for the premiers to press Ottawa to show national leadership on improving the scope of our national public health care system.

"It's not just a matter of money, it's about accountability and vision," Smith said.

The premiers are expected during their July 25-27 meeting to discuss the Harper Government's "non-negotiable" national health care funding levels of 6 per cent a year for each year until 2016. Thereafter, the Harper Government says, the health transfer payments will move toward a formula based on economic growth.

Today's news conference was called by Public Interest Alberta's Seniors Task Force to reveal to the public the Alberta government's draft concept paper called "Moving Continuing Care Centres Forward," which officials have shared with private-sector nursing home operators but not with seniors' groups or worker representatives like UNA.

The government of Premier Alison Redford has been using the paper as part of a consultation process that only involves facility owners and operators, and invited stakeholders. Smith said the government's lack of consultation with all stakeholder groups encourages the fear among those left out that "if you're not at the table, you're on the menu."

Submissions to the consultation questions had to be submitted to the government by last Friday - July 13.

Smith read from UNA's uninvited submission to Alberta Health – which answered from nurses' perspective the questions posed to nursing home operators by the government. "UNA urges Alberta Health to rethink the consultative process and include all stakeholders, and to not develop proposals based on a preconceived bias toward a larger private sector, for-profit role in this essential part of the overall health care system," she read.

Noel Somerville, Chair of the PIA Seniors Task Force, called the concept paper "not a seniors' care proposal, but rather a business proposal. He complained that the proposal continues plans first made public when Ron Liepert was Alberta health minister to offload the government's seniors' care costs onto the families of Albertans who require long-term care and enrich facility operators and insurance providers in the process.

Carol Wodak of Continuing Care Watch and the Seniors Action and Liaison Team told media at the conference "seniors need to be the primary – stakeholders' instead of an incidental afterthought in their public policy discussion and decision-making. We need an end to closed-door decision making by those who have vested economic interests in the decisions."

PIA Executive Director Bill Moore-Kilgannon accused the Redford Government of "deliberately ignoring the downloading of costs on to seniors and their families, and the lack of qualified staff in many facilities."

PIA has asked Albertans to send stories of their families' experiences with seniors' care as well as their proposed solutions to fix the system. The stories will be used to advocate for quality public seniors' care and will not be shared without the permissions of their authors.

Send your stories to: SeniorsCareStories@pialberta.org.

Click here to read UNA's submission to the government.