The budget that was tabled by Alberta’s government this week has money set aside to “transform” the province’s continuing care system, according to Health Minister Jason Copping.
“Continuing care looks different to each Albertan that needs it,” Copping said at a news conference Friday.
The budget focuses on home care, with nurses and health-care aides visiting patients in their homes.
“We know that the majority of Albertans — whether they live in rural areas or urban centres — wish to age in their own homes and communities as long as possible,” said Feisal Keshavjvee, chair of the Alberta Continuing Care Association.
Copping said seniors aging at home is especially important in rural communities, where much of the funding will be focused.
The budget also contains $90 million to expand spaces in continuing care facilities.
Copping said the need for continuing care spaces will significantly increase in the next 10 years as those over the age of 65 are set to make up 20 per cent of Alberta’s population by 2046.
With the funds, the province said it intends to complete the new Bridgeland Riverside Continuing Care Centre in Calgary with almost 200 new spaces as well as the Gene Zwozdesky Centre in Edmonton with 145 new spaces.
Copping added details on capital funding for more new spaces in the two cities will be coming soon.
Health-care workers will be given more training opportunities and opportunities for full-time hours and benefits with funding from the budget, Copping said.
In a report on COVID-19 and care homes released by Alberta’s auditor general, Doug Wylie said the system worked hard in early waves of the pandemic to deal with crippling staff shortages.
Wylie said though it helped reduce the spread of the disease, the problem got a lot worse when the province mandated that workers could not work in more than one continuing care facility.
“Facilities really struggled to ensure that they had enough of the right staff to provide safe resident care,” Wylie said when the report was released last month.
“This was especially true during an outbreak (of COVID-19), when up to 20 to 50 per cent of an already-stretched staff could be off due to illness or isolation requirements.”
Wylie went on to say poor communication between agencies, lacking infrastructure and long wait times for COVID test results compounded the crisis.
The Opposition said the government is “playing catch up ahead of an election.”
“The recent auditor general report showed more seniors in care got sick, and more died, because the UCP refused to invest when it mattered most,” said Alberta NDP seniors critic Lori Sigurdson. “This is a shameful record.”