Alberta Health Services announced Tuesday that officials were reviewing recent decisions directly related to palliative, home care, and continuing care – and some recent changes, will be reversed.
Officials said Tuesday that AHS was reversing a move to cancel home care contracts with three Edmonton supportive living facilities: Abbey Road Housing Co-operative, Artspace Housing Co-operative and Creekside Support Services.
In addition, officials said a policy which required patients needing continuing care to take placements within 100 kilometres of their home, has been withdrawn, effective immediately.
“We want our seniors to age alongside the ones they love,” Health Minister Fred Horne said in a press release. “Decisions about continuing care placement must start with supporting seniors as close to home as possible, and doing all we can to keep couples together.”
AHS said officials had reached an agreement with 13 home care providers who serve clients in Calgary and Edmonton.
Previously, AHS had announced the number of home care contracts was being reduced from 72 to 13.
“I think in this case, we’ve got the right business model but we didn’t listen enough to individual patients and families,” AHS CEO Dr. Chris Eagle said Tuesday at a press conference in Edmonton. “I think there are some pretty big lessons in how we do this large scale change.”
NDP MLA David Eggen said Tuesday’s announcement should be credited to the persistence of advocacy groups.
“You only get what you fight for,” Eggen said. “It seems, with this government, if we would’ve let slip, it would’ve been another loss to public health.”
With files from Carmen Leibel
