Snowzilla #2

November/December 2008

Regular readers of Martha will note that she is a little obsessed with weird news items. Two years ago, Martha introduced you to Snowzilla and Billy Powers of Anchorage, Alaska, who built the 16-foot high snowman in his front yard. Well, as luck would have it Snowzilla is back in the news after Billy’s neighbours, who were none too impressed with the traffic jams and noise generated by the huge Frosty with his corncob pipe and all, decided to ask the city council to make sure Billy no longer built Snowzilla. City Hall, who were none too impressed with the back taxes and fines Billy owed them, decided the neighbours were right and nailed a cease and desist order on the first stage of Snowzilla. Billy said Snowzilla would not rise again. But on the morning of December 24, 2008 Billy stepped out his front door to find a larger, taller Snowzilla than ever before and he insists he had nothing to do with it. (You really must see the photos: Snowzilla website).

Well, as you can imagine it has created something to talk about in Anchorage, other than their governor’s failed run at the White House. There is a movement afoot to Save Snowzilla and a snowman sit-in was staged at City Hall (though warm weather melted the sit-in and all that was left were the protest signs reading, “Snowmen have rights too”). Snowzilla.org has sprung up to raise money for Billy Power’s defence team and they are selling t-shirts and ball caps (Martha wonders why not toques) that read “Save Snowzilla”. It is quite the effort for what amounts to a pile of cold water.

Martha wonders if it isn’t time to stage our own Save Snowzilla campaign, complete with toques, for Alberta’s continuing care system. Somehow, it seems, the welfare of the most vulnerable in our society, the chronically ill and the aged, has been forgotten and Albertans have been snowed!

On December 15, 2008 the Alberta government announced a Continuing Care strategy that opened the door to further privatization of continuing care in Alberta. Under the new “strategy”, private companies will be encouraged to build and operate long term care facilities in Alberta because the residents will be charged extra for all kinds of services that are currently offered in these facilities. Minister of Health Ron Liepert was blatant in his approach, “Quite frankly, it's a business. And the numbers haven't justified the business case. What we want to do is start to open some of that up.”

Defenders of the public health care system were horrified with the strategy. Bill Moore-Kilgannon of Public Interest Alberta said it was one more step towards private health care: “It's just horrendous that they're not committing to increase the capacity of our public health-care system, and boldly, flat-out say they're going to open up the pricing of seniors' care so that more private corporations can come in and build more long-term care facilities. What this will do is further open up seniors and their families to huge increases in the price of long-term care without any government oversight.” (CTV news)

The Alberta government’s own numbers suggest that there is a growing crisis in continuing care as the growth of older seniors (the ones most likely to need care) is growing faster than younger age groups.

“In 2005, seniors aged 80 and over made up one-quarter of all Alberta seniors, up from 21 percent in 1974 (see Chart 2). This group is expected to more than double in the next 20 years” (Seniors factsheet)

CUPE-Alberta Division, the union representing more than 3400 long term care employees in Alberta, pointed to some potential problems in an April 2008 news release titled “Auditor General's report won't lead to improvements in care in Alberta”. They noted that staffing was limited in assisted living facilities and that while the Auditor General’s report noted that the number of long-term beds had not risen as quickly as the number of supportive living beds (also called assisted living), in fact there had been a decrease in long-term care beds in many regions of Alberta.

This made Martha swallow her corn-cob pipe. Alberta’s population is on a steady increase and we are seeing decreases in long-term care beds? Could this be true? So she did some digging. Below is a chart that Martha created using data taken from publicly available documents on Alberta government websites.

Health Region	2005 LTC beds	2007 LTC beds	% change (beds)	2005 population	2007/2008 projected population	% change (pop)	Relative % change in beds & pop
Chinook	806	731	-9.31	154910	160966	3.91	-13.21
Pallliser	552	519	-5.98	100977	106335	5.31	-11.28
Calgary	4504	4657	3.40	1171275	1274796	8.84	-5.44
David Thompson	1405	1399	-0.43	293848	313835	6.80	-7.23
East Central	942	878	-6.79	110483	114066	3.24	-10.04
Capital	4452	4690	5.35	1005411	1070650	6.49	-1.14
Aspen	859	825	-3.96	176363	181619	2.98	-6.94
Peace Country	481	430	-10.60	135246	146041	7.98	-18.58
Northern Lights	64	76	18.75	73679	79024	7.25	11.50
Totals	14065	14204	0.99	3222191	3447333	6.99	-6.00

As you can see in this table, the number of beds is not keeping up with population increases at all. While LTC beds in some regions increased, the population increase demanded a much larger increase in LTC beds and in those regions where beds decreased, the increase in population leaves huge gaps in services. Residents in Chinook Region have been feeling the impact of these gaps and have worked together to halt the planned closure of one LTC facility before another was even built. But even with that temporary win in Chinook the loss of LTC beds will become critical, if it isn’t already. Peace Country residents should be building snowmen in front of the provincial legislature right now as their loss of beds and increased population has led to an eighteen and a half percent decreased in the number of beds available per capita. Across the whole province you can see a slight increase in beds (0.99%) but an increasing population that has left the province with fewer beds per capita (down 6% across the province). And this from a province that says the fastest growing group of seniors is those over 80.

While the continuing care strategy announced by the province is aimed at keeping more seniors in their homes with more home care and better supports (a laudable goal, says Martha), the plain reality is that some elderly and infirmed Albertans need the supports of a long-term care facility and all evidence points to MORE people needing this, not less. Even the Minister of Health admitted there are thousands waiting for those few long-term beds. His count was 1000 in hospitals and 500 at home were waiting to be placed in one of those 14,000 beds. Is it just Martha or does it appear the Minister needs a math lesson. David Eggen, Executive Director of the Friends of Medicare, summarized it this way, “There's an urgent need for more spaces in this province now and this plan freezes the long-term care spaces for an unspecified number of years. This idea that people are going to get miraculously better, it just flies in the face of reason and of medicine.”

We need to organize a Save Long-Term Care movement that rivals the Save Snowzilla one. Join Martha in writing to Minister Liepert and the Premier to ask that more LTC beds be planned immediately and a moratorium on bed closures be instituted until the new beds open. Use the letter below (copy and paste it into your message) and add your own experiences and concerns (and full name and address).

Email the letter now. (If this link does not open up your mail client, simply copy and paste the address below in the “To:” portion of your message).

premier@gov.ab.ca, calgary.west@assembly.ab.ca, lethbridge.east@assembly.ab.ca, edmonton.highlandsnorwood@assembly.ab.ca, marthasmonthly@yahoo.ca,

Interesting links in this Martha:

‘Snowzilla’ mysteriously reappears in Alaska: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/12/24/7844616-ap.html

Snowzilla website: www.snowzilla.org

Alberta seniors to be able to buy extra care: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081216/Alberta_seniors_081216/20081216?hub=Canada

Alberta Seniors Fact Sheet – The Seniors Population is Aging: http://www.seniors.gov.ab.ca/policy_planning/factsheet_seniors/aging_population/aging/index.asp

December 31, 2008

Premier Ed Stelmach

Minister Liepert

CC: Bridget Pastoor, Brian Mason, Martha’s Monthly

Re: Net loss of long-term care beds

Dear Premier Stelmach and Minister Liepert

I write to you with my deep concern about the overall net loss of long-term care beds in Alberta. While across the province there has been a small increase in the number of beds, the per capita numbers have actually decreased and, in some regions, this represents a dramatic decrease in the available beds per capita. While I favor the government’s stated objective to help maintain seniors in their homes as much as possible, it is not possible to maintain all people in their homes and the availability of long-term care beds is an essential component of the overall continuing care strategy. To date, your government has failed to increase long-term care availability and Minister Liepert has been quoted as saying that as many as 1500 Albertans await long-term care in acute care hospitals and in their home. This represents a critical failure and must be immediately addressed.

I call on your government to increase the number of long-term beds per capita in all regions and to place a moratorium on LTC bed closures until sufficient supply of beds is provided to meet the demand that you have admitted exists. A society is judged by its care of the most vulnerable and those requiring long-term care in our province represent some of the most vulnerable of our citizens. They must be provided with quality care that is provided through a public system that is monitored by the government. Nothing else will be acceptable.

Sincerely

Your name and full address