The Red Deer Advocate reports that, “Health care advocates in Central Alberta are demanding that Alberta Health Services take over the operation of Red Deer’s newest privately operated long-term care centre. Local chapters of Friends of Medicare, Council of Canadians, and Central Alberta Council on Aging say the neglect of residents due to the lack of staff at Extendicare Michener Hill can’t continue and the province needs to step in. Alberta Health Services recently shut down two publicly-funded and operated nursing homes and moved residents to Extendicare, a publicly-funded and privately-operated facility.”
“Ken Collier, chair of the local Red Deer and Area Chapter of the Council of Canadians, said Extendicare has been operating for about 50 years and has opened new buildings and moved residents before. ‘Surely Extendicare has enough experience under its belt to know how to do these things. But they don’t. They keep on fumbling. They keep on dropping the ball,’ Collier said on Tuesday. ‘(The province) thinks that private sector can take on these responsibilities and do as good a job as Alberta Health Services. Stories in the newspaper, one after the other, tell us they can’t.’”
“A petition with 6,890 signatures to save Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor from closure was tabled in the legislature in October.”
In her 2002 book Profit Is Not The Cure, Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow wrote, “The five-volume report of the Senate Committee for Social Affairs, Science and Technology led by Liberal Senator Michael Kirby…foresees a major role for the private sector (in health care). …This might not be a surprise, considering that Senator Kirby has been a director of Extendicare, a for-profit, long-term care corporation, since 1985.” (page 232)
Barlow also notes, “At a Council of Canadians public meeting on March 11, 2002, on the future of health care in Victoria, Joanne Foote told of the deterioration of long-term care in BC as it becomes more under-funded and privatized. The province has about 2,500 publicly funded long-term beds, and roughly one-third are owned by private for-profit companies such as Extendicare and Central Park Lodge.” (page 144)
And Barlow wrote about a profitable funding arrangement between the Harris government in Ontario and Extendicare. She highlighted, “The company, which was slapped with the largest abuse and neglect verdict in Florida’s history (worth US $20 million, with an appeal that was settled for an undisclosed amount) over an Alzheimer’s patient who died of a gangrenous bedsore, gave $37,000 to the Ontario Tories in political donations between 1995 and 1999. In September 2000, Extendicare divested its Florida holdings.” (pages 93-94)
The full Red Deer Advocate article is at http://www.albertalocalnews.com/reddeeradvocate/news/local/Health-care_groups_want_province_to_take_over_Extendicare_108675329.html.
