Brian Mason and Alberta's NDP want to improve the level of care in seniors' homes.
Liberals and Tories are on the side of private, profitable corporations who operate seniors' homes. They can't be trusted to do the right thing.
- Brian Mason
Liberals and Conservatives are on the side of private, profitable seniors' home operators.
Two years after the Auditor General's landmark report on the appalling conditions in long-term care centres, very little has changed. The inability to plan and an ideological commitment to privatization have let seniors down.
We can't trust the Liberals and Conservatives to fix the system because they are dependent on political donations from private, profitable seniors' home operators like Extendicare.
The big private operators like the system the way it is. Poor care, low wages, and miserable conditions mean greater profits. That's why they invest in the Liberal and Conservative parties - to make sure nothing changes.
Brian Mason and Alberta's NDP are on the side of seniors
The Auditor General's 2005 report into long-term care was a scandal for the province. The fact that nothing has changed is an outright shame.
Alberta's NDP have an action plan, including:
- Introducing province-wide measurable and enforceable standards for care. These must include best practices for nursing ratios and resident complaint mechanisms.
- Legislating standard qualifications for health care aides who provide most of the day-to-day personal and nursing care to residents
- Stopping the conversion of long-term care facilities to assisted living facilities - with lower standards and higher fees
- Establishing community-based teams of mental health professionals to offer quick response to patient crises and to offer family support improving facility inspections. If they are not unannounced, with publicly posted results and strong accountability measures -- they don't do any good.
