Union for Alberta continuing-care workers decries ‘collapsing’ working, living conditions

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees is calling on the government to make a number of changes at continuing care facilities.

The province’s largest union is highlighting what it calls a crisis in care for Alberta’s seniors.

Sandra Azocar, the president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), said Friday the union’s ‘Care Delayed is Care Denied’ campaign aims to bring attention to deteriorating conditions for residents in provincial continuing care.

“The reason why we’re doing this is because we want to bring attention to the fact that this continuing care sector is collapsing around us,” Azocar said Friday during an availability with media. “The employers, the government and Albertans are not aware of what is happening, and we want to make sure that we bring attention to those stories that matter to people that are receiving care in these continuing care facilities and the workers in this sector.”

More than 17,000 members of the AUPE, which represents more than 100,000 provincial workers across several sectors, are currently bargaining with continuing care employers.

Azocar accused the government of undercutting continuing care, by moving seniors with complex issues from hospitals to crowded care facilities and by chronically short-staffing facilities, in favour of privatizing and monetizing the sector.

“What we’re seeing is more of a marketization and a profit-making motive in this sector, where these continuing-care operators are making millions of dollars on the backs of seniors and on the backs of workers, and what we want to do is actually to make sure that Albertans take action against this privatization, where seniors have become an ATM for most of these operators,” she said. “We want to be able to provide the level of care that seniors need in these facilities.”

In a statement to CTV News Edmonton, the press secretary for Minister of Assisted Living and Social Services Jason Nixon said AUPE’s claims that seniors in the province “are being prematurely or unsafely moved from hospital into continuing care are categorically untrue.”

“When continuing care facilities have vacancies, patients in hospital who no longer require acute care are transitioned into these spaces, ensuring they receive the care they need in comfortable, appropriate spaces, and ensuring hospital beds are able to be utilized by the acute patients who need them most,” Amber Edgerton said in the statement.

She said the Alberta government is “transforming” the assisted living and continuing-care sector to make sure people get the care they need, saying the province has invested $5.9 billion into it, including $555 million “to support a strong and resilient workforce in the system.”

Azocar said the union is asking for better wages and working conditions during bargaining, as well as for mandated minimum staffing and care hours, and for transparency and accountability for how public money is spent in the system.

Edgerton said the ministry would not comment on the bargaining process.