Concerned citizens attended a packed town hall in Athabasca with Wildrose leader Danielle Smith last Tuesday, and main discussion topics included dialysis and seniors care.
“It is not just here; it really is throughout the province,” Smith said to the crowd at the Athabasca Seniors’ Drop-In Centre regarding issues with seniors care. “We see a philosophy that is overtaking the government that is getting in the way of good funding policy and good decision-making.”
Smith said the government has not prioritized long-term care beds that offer round-the-clock nursing care.
“I know we all want to age in place as long as we can and have home care and be able to age peacefully, but let’s face it: a percentage of us won’t be able to do that,” she said. “Some of us at some point are going to need 24-hour nursing care.”
Smith asked if 24-hour care beds are not available, what happens to the patients?
“They end up going into acute care beds in hospitals, and we have found that at any given time, we have 400 to 800 beds that are filled with patients who would otherwise be better served at a cost-effective rate in a long-term care facility,” she said. “The other track that we see happening is that residents are being placed in care facilities that don’t have the full range of care provisions.”
Seniors are being charged extra for services that would be covered in a long-term care facility, but aren’t covered in the care facility they are in, said Smith.
“We think that is a broken model, and what we would like to see is to have a true continuing care model approach that you start off in independent living, get home care when you need it, move to assisted living, and then long-term care depending on what you need,” she explained. “We want a funding model that is flexible enough that you actually provide the facility with the appropriate amount of dollars so that as a person is aging through the different levels of care, you are providing the dollars to be able to go along with it.”
Smith explained this would require a complete overhaul of the health-care system.
“When we talked with the municipal council, one of the things they were saying was that they can provide the lodges, but it doesn’t cover the operating cost, so the municipalities end up having to pay a large portion to be able to have these kinds of centres for their community residents without the dollars flowing,” she said. “Our starting point is recognizing that we do need to have long-term care beds and 24-hour nursing care, the full range of services, proper funding model, and we need to partner with municipalities and local groups to make sure funding is following the resident to the facility of their choice.”
Smith said she wants to see people be able to age in their communities.
“We have to get rid of the approach that the place where you end up spending your final days is decided by the bureaucrats in Edmonton,” she said. “There are awful stories of husbands and wives being split up. There are awful stories about people being moved out of their community.”
Smith believes people don’t want to be relocated.
“I think that there is a huge appetite among our community residents and municipal leaders to solve this problem, but they need a funding partner in the province that is willing to put in rational roles and make sure we can support our seniors along the way,” she explained. “That is not happening right now.”
Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills Wildrose MLA Shayne Saskiw also attended the event, and he addressed audience concerns about dialysis.
Several years ago in Athabasca, a petition was circulated to have dialysis units in Athabasca, but failed.
“The government said there is not enough demand for dialysis,” Saskiw said. “That is completely wrong.”
Saskiw believes that people should be able to receive dialysis in their home community.
“Without a dialysis unit in Athabasca, you are going to have to travel hours to get dialysis. Once you have dialysis, you are really groggy and you have to travel all the way back home,” he said. “You have hours and hours of travelling. What happens if you have bad weather?”
Saskiw stated that if a person fails to receive dialysis, it is life threatening.
“I have been advocating in the legislature to have dialysis put back in Athabasca,” he said. “In Lac La Biche, we had to fight tooth and nail with the government. We yelled, we screamed and we got our councils and businesses involved.”
The Lac La Biche hospital currently has a dialysis bus parked outside the hospital.
“If someone is already willing to pay for a dialysis unit, it just makes absolute sense,” he said, adding that people in Athabasca have offered to pay for machines to be installed.
An Alberta Health Services document obtained by the Wildrose Party that stated the closure of Boyle Hospital is a possibility was also a concern raised at the town hall.
“It is very difficult for us to say if any decisions are going to be made right now,” Smith said.
Saskiw added, “In this circumstance, we have received documents indicating what might happen in Boyle. If you had local decision-making, I bet the hospital would be utilized to the fullest extent.”
Athabasca County councillor Larry Armfelt said one concern he has is bridge funding.
“One thing that we need is a new bridge across the river,” he said. “That is a concern for town, Athabasca County and the Municipality of Opportunity.”
Having services go across the Athabasca River would be beneficial to all, he said.
“What we would like the province to do is to build the bridge, what we need, and not download the other expenses to us, as they have done with the bridges in the county,” Armfelt said. “We don’t want the downloading. We can’t afford it.”
Smith said the approach that currently applies to municipalities isn’t working.
“The begging approach that we have for municipalities doesn’t work for rural or urban municipalities,” she said. “I think that transferring of authorities is okay, as long as you are willing to flow through more dollars to be able to take care of it.”
Smith said she believes that communities know what their most urgent needs are.
Smith explained she was travelling to communities to hear what concerns citizens had.
“To me, that is what politics are all about,” Smith said. “Even though we didn’t elect a Wildrose member in this area last time around, we still take our role very seriously as one that can bring issues forward.”
Smith met with the Town of Athabasca council prior to her town hall.
“We talked about the issues of health care and trying to recruit family doctors, which is such a huge issue in rural communities,” she said. “We talked about concern around having adequate seniors care, as well as some of the issues around education.”
