Alberta premier denies opposition’s claim of long-term-care bed closures

EDMONTON — Alberta's premier isn't ruling out the closure of long-term-care beds, but said math suggesting the province could lose thousands of beds is wrong.

Ed Stelmach was speaking Wednesday in response to a government-commissioned report leaked by the opposition NDP the day before, which indicated the province was targeting "a significant reduction in long-term-care beds" while boosting beds in privately run assisted-living facilities.

"The NDP mathematics is flawed, totally flawed, and that's unfortunate, because we have groups that want to work together for one common goal, and that is to improve the quality of life for our seniors," Stelmach said.

The document described a goal of reducing long-term-care spaces to 20 per cent of the beds available for seniors in the province — down from 40 per cent currently, the NDP said. That equated to the closure of up to 9,000 long-term-care beds in Alberta, but NDP Leader Brian Mason said fewer than that would actually close, since more assisted-living facilities are being built.

Stelmach said his focus was on creating homelike atmospheres for seniors.

"It has to be deinstitutionalized and that is our goal, to make (seniors) as comfortable as possible and ensure that many seniors can retire in the communities they helped build," he told reporters in Calgary.

He spoke of the "long-term-care institutions" built in the 1970s, in which two to three people with different needs lived in the same room.

"They were institutions," he said. "We have to make sure we have the proper accommodations in place, and that means we're going to be moving a lot of seniors out of hospitals, and I can tell you, hospitals are not a home."

Bill Moore-Kilgannon, executive director of Public Interest Alberta, which also released the leaked document, said he agrees seniors want to remain at home, but called for clarity in what that means for the future of long-term care.

"Clearly, the premier has just admitted they have a plan to cut long-term-care beds," Moore-Kilgannon said.

"If he's saying the math is wrong, then he needs to publicly state what the math is. The premier needs to stop dodging the question about what they're actually doing."

Mason called on the government to release all documents discussing changes to the long-term-care system.

"What I think upsets me the most is the way the government operates," Mason said. "It's continuously trying to confuse people and hide what it's doing."