Government Inaction on Senior Issues
Home > Abuse & Neglect Studies Letters & Reports > Government Inaction on Senior IssuesJuly 6, 2022
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Government Inaction on senior issues may be innocuous for politicians but not victims.
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The Elder Advocates of Alberta Society asks how free and compassionate our society is if criminal
charges are not laid against those who commit abusive crimes against seniors?
Is it unfair to label judges and politicians as incompetent because they break promises or fail to
uphold the laws of the land their predecessors did under oath of office a century ago?
The society’s answers to these questions and the conclusions resulting from its homework strongly
suggests they are not just relevant but, astoundingly, old and unnecessarily dated.
Between 1980 and 1982 public outrage arose following Dr. Henry Hyde’s Alberta Nursing Home Review
Panel report, revealing the extent to which aged seniors were subjected to physical violence and
other abuses by some nursing home staff. The Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald newspapers reported
extensively on the Panel’s findings at the time.
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THE ISSUES OF NURSING HOMES IS BY NO MEANS A NEW ONE.
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“The issue of nursing homes is by no means a new one. In the last ten years the government has ignored
numerous reports, including its own – documenting drug over-use, lack of rehabilitation programs –
staff training and lack of staff,” wrote Helen Melnyk, a staff writer for the Edmonton Journal at time
of publication dated February 28/1981.
No charges were ever laid as a result of the report. Very little has changed since then.
In December of 2020, at the Cedars Villa Nursing home in Calgary on a cold winter night a
91-year-old dementia patient who was supposed to be locked in a secure ward was found dead
in the snow outside the facility.
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FOR HALF A CENTURY THERE HAS BEEN KNOWN ABUSE, VIOLENCE AND DEADLY NEGLECT.
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“For half a century, there has been known abuse, violence and deadly neglect of the elderly and
for half a century no accountability,” says Ruth Adria, executive director of EAAS. “Failed accountability
has spawned intentional criminal assaults and repeat offences.”
Our leaders need to act, recognizing that the concerns of EAAS and other Albertans are serious.
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For too long, too many Albertans have experienced the ‘passing the buck game’, where citizen concerns
are forwarded to their MLAs, then subsequently passed along to other MLAs who fail to act on the cries
of help they receive from constituents. Sadly enough, some of those MLAs who were more than qualified
to act appropriately and with confidence did little or nothing.
HESITANT POLITICAL WILL
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Regardless of which ideological party holds Provincial power, hesitant political will has been the
weapon of choice for decades. The problem, however, is who gets hurt when it is wielded.
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Media Inquiries
Darcy Gray
Press Secretary, Elder Advocates of Alberta Society
(780) 863-1635 E-mail ldguy.Darcy@gmail.com
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