Organizations Deliver Message to Ministers from Thousands of Albertans
EDMONTON The Ministers of Health and Seniors will be meeting with representatives from the Seniors Task Force of Public Interest Alberta at the Legislature Building at 3:00 PM on October 3rd.18 representatives from various organizations will deliver thousands of signed postcards to the Ministers. The meeting with the Ministers will discuss if the government will:
- Create viable and responsive public home care
- Strengthen the Nursing Home Act
- Build more long-term care facilities
- Establish a Seniors Advocate as an office of the Legislature
- Make seniors care facilities more democratic with mandated family councils.
"Seniors are very upset about the direction this government is taking on seniors care," says Noel Somerville, Chairperson of Public Interest Alberta's Seniors Task Force. "Far too many seniors are not getting the care they need as this government seems to be listening more to industry than to seniors."
"We hope that this meeting will clarify if these Ministers are going to follow through on their party's election promise to build 1000 long-term care beds (not just "continuing care beds") and if they are going to give seniors and their families a voice by creating an independent seniors advocate and mandating family councils," says Bill Moore-Kilgannon, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. "Seniors groups hear too many heart-wrenching stories about what is happening with seniors care. It is time that government hears directly from seniors, and the organizations that represent them, about how to improve the system."
The Seniors Task Force will be gathering for a photo on the steps of the legislature at 2:40 PM and will be available to speak to the media then and following the meeting with the Ministers which is slated to go until 3:45.
-30-
