Seniors

The following piece, published in the Edmonton Journal, quotes Noel Somerivlle, PIA Seniors task force chair. Commenting on this article, Somerville says, "Hands-on, not high-tech help is what frail and cognitively impaired seniors require."

The "Continuing Care Strategy" announced in December, 2008, froze the number of long term care (LTC) beds at a grossly inadequate number and made it clear that the government wants to abandon continuing care to private-for-profit operators. The government has been reclassifying LTC facilities as auxiliary hospitals to circumvent the staffing requirements of the Nursing Home Act, and Bill 18, approved by the legislature in December 2010 was welcomed by the President and CEO of Alberta Health Services as a way of getting rid of the Nursing Home Act altogether. 

EDMONTON—David Eggen, Friends of Medicare, and Noel Somerville, Chair of Public Interest Alberta's Seniors' Task Force, spoke in Camrose, Alberta, about the effects the new Alberta Health Act will have on seniors.

Two months before Alberta’s first baby boomers turn 65, the province has no concrete plan to address the expected surge in demand for health care, housing and financial support, critics of a new report say.  The province on Monday released the Aging Population Policy Framework, a 60-page document outlining “strategic policy directions” for seniors’ care and support in Alberta.

Lack of long-term beds a real problem

Alberta embodies need for pension reform: expert