Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
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The Saskatchewan NDP is calling the treatment of seniors in long-term care under the pandemic a failure.
Matt Love, the NDP critic for seniors, said the provincial government failed to act on what he called a crisis in the long-term care system, and he said it also failed to take any significant action to protect seniors when the second wave of COVID-19 hit.
“The result of these failures is that Saskatchewan families are being let down,” said Love.
Love said part of the problem is the for-profit long-term care homes in the province, all of which are run by the Extendicare company. Love said looking at the scale of COVID deaths across Canada shows the for-profit model is broken.
“It betrays the families who have loved ones living here, but I also want to say it betrays the folks who come to work here every day,” said Love.
NDP Leader Ryan Meili stepped in and said the party has a number of demands it’s calling on the government to take action on. First, he wants the management and ownership of all the for-profit homes to be absorbed back into the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
“For years the for-profit model has been failing residents at every level across the country, but the pandemic has made that all too tragically clear in a much more serious way,” said Meili.
The NDP also wants the government to be more transparent about the outbreaks in care homes, demanding more information about cases and their outcomes.
Meili said the government also needs to immediately hire the 300 continuing care aides that were promised in the fall throne speech, instead of waiting until after the spring budget as was originally planned.
He also believes there needs to be a workforce strategy, bringing the health authority and health-care unions together.
“(It would help to create) a plan to have adequate staffing so that we can have minimum care standards in all facilities — public, not-for-profit, private — and the charitable sector as well, including a maximum of two residents per room,” said Meili.
The party also wants the temporary wage supplement to be expanded to all health-care workers who should be eligible, and for the province to created a seniors’ advocate.
“It is time that we act now; these changes cannot wait. The pandemic has made it clear it’s time to fix the broken long-term care system in Saskatchewan starting with elimination for-profit care in the province,” said Meili.
Meili believes if these changes are made immediately, it will lower the risk people in care homes are at and will address long-standing problems in long-term care.
According to Meili, such changes should have been made months if not years ago.
“They had all summer to get ready. They saw what happened in Ontario, they knew we were going to get a second wave here and they did nothing. They just used magical thinking instead of actually taking action to protect seniors,” said Meili.
When asked about the cost of such endeavours, Meili said that’s not what he’s concerned about — he’s more concerned about the cost of continuing to lose seniors.
