Quality, affordable long term care

While the government does help to fund publicly and privately operated care facilities for Alberta seniors, most of this funding is directed toward facilities that provide low levels of medical and personal care.

The needs of Alberta seniors who are cognitively impaired, chronically ill, or frail to the point that they require help with basic tasks (getting out of bed, bathing, dressing, moving about, eating) are not met in such facilities. Such seniors require long term care (LTC) facilities that have sufficient numbers of qualified staff to meet their medically necessary needs.

The inadequate number of LTC facilities has led to many seniors who are medically assessed as urgently requiring LTC being accommodated in acute care hospital beds where they have become known as “bed blockers." This is a needlessly expensive and medically unwise way of caring for seniors with compromised immune systems.

Nor can the needs of such patients be met in assisted living facilities that lack the staffing complement and training required.

The government must commit to providing a sufficient number of LTC beds to meet the needs of a growing number of cognitively impaired, chronically ill and profoundly frail Alberta seniors.

PIA's Seniors Task Force has identified five steps that would significantly improve conditions for Alberta seniors:

1. Provide quality public home care
2. Ensure quality, affordable long-term care (LTC) facilities
3. A moratorium on converting LTC facilities to assisted living
4. Create advisory councils in all seniors care facilities
5. Appoint an Independent Seniors Advocate