Time to end profit-making in seniors’ care

April 27, 2020

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Andrew Longhurst and Kendra Strauss’s research was covered in media

Andrew Longhurst (PhD student, Department of Geography) and Kendra Strauss’s (Associate Professor and Director, Labour Studies Program, and Associate Member, Department of Geography) research brief published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives was covered widely in the media over the last week. The research brief discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities and long-term impacts of policies aimed at expanding the role of for-profit companies in BC's long-term care sector, causing precarious working conditions, low pay, and staffing shortages.

https://www.policynote.ca/seniors-care-profit/

Andrew and Kendra make a number of immediate and longer term recommendations to the provincial government:

Implement much greater accountability of how public dollars are spent in publicly funded facilities;
Maintain the temporary public health order to increase wages to the provincial unionized standard for all workers;
Ban sub-contracting;
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, begin transitioning exclusively to non-profit and public delivery of seniors’ care.

Global News

https://globalnews.ca/news/6856685/families-of-covid-19-victims-call-for-change-to-b-c-senior-care-system/

News 1130

https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/04/24/pandemic-overhaul-bc-senior-care-model/

Mornings with Simi, CKNW 980

https://omny.fm/shows/the-simi-sara-show/new-healthcare-issues-for-seniors-at-the-forefront

Times Colonist and syndicated in select Glacier Media newspapers

https://www.timescolonist.com/covid-19/b-c-seniors-care-needs-reset-1.24122663

https://www.nsnews.com/b-c-seniors-care-needs-reset-1.24122663

https://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/b-c-seniors-care-needs-reset-1.24122663

https://www.newwestrecord.ca/b-c-seniors-care-needs-reset-1.24122663

Daybreak South, CBC Kelowna