Editor:
The cry to end for-profit care seniors’ facilities (like Trellis) for elderly seniors has certainly not gone away, although our MLA would have us think so. One hopes that with his new role in the inner circle, he will voice our strong and widely-supported interests with more strength.
Two more calls for fairness and equity in care facilities have recently emerged. The Canadian Council for Policy Alternatives, in late November, published a paper entitled “A Higher Standard,” where the call for phasing out for-profits was strong. They point out what many of us have been saying for years – there is no justification for profit-making on the backs of the weak and elderly! They reiterate that for-profits are responsible only to shareholders, not to patients (due partly, we know, to B.C.’s shameful lack of policing over standards and financial management in the facilities). CCPA wants to see “a plan to ensure all public money goes to public or non-profit institutions including any sub-contracted services.”
The BC Government Employees’ Union has for several years been calling for the end of privatization in care facilities and recently published a statement claiming that for-profit owners are busy lobbying the provincial government to prevent the shift away from for-profit facilities. More than 500 new beds will be built in the near future, and the goal of BCGEU is that none will be for-profit.
The BCGEU, the CCPA and many of us who have been working on this issue for years, hope that you will raise your concerns with your MLA, the Ministers and the Premier. Perhaps we can’t stop our impending for-profit threat of Trellis (and the shutting down of both our publicly-operated facilities in Sechelt) but we hope for better results around B.C.
Gail Riddell, Committee Member,
Protect Public Health Care
Sunshine Coast
