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By Chris Brown / CHAT News Today

$11 Million

Province giving more money for rising cost of continuing care accommodation

Jul 27, 2022 | 12:12 PM

Seniors are getting more financial help from Alberta’s government.

The province says it will provide $11 million to help fight inflationary increases to the cost of accommodation. The financial relief will be available to Albertans in designated supportive living and long-term care from Nov. 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.

“We recognize inflation is affecting everyone, especially residents and operators of continuing care,” says Health Minister Jason Copping in a statement. “Operators are experiencing much higher costs this year due to the higher inflation rate and we are taking extra measures to support residents in publicly funded continuing care homes by subsidizing a portion of their accommodation costs for the year.”

As of Nov. 1, residents’ accommodation charges will only increase by 3.2 per cent, instead of this year’s rate of 5.5 per cent. The province says it will pay operators the remaining 2.3 per cent, on behalf of residents, for the November to June period.

From July 1 until Oct. 31 this year, the province is fully subsidizing the 5.5 per cent increase.

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Accommodation charges annually are increased annually by the government, as required under regulation, to a maximum of 5.5 per cent as of July 1 by the change in the Alberta Consumer Price Index.

The charges reflect the cost of providing such things as resident rooms, meals and meal service, laundering of towels and linens housekeeping services, utilities, routine building maintenance and general administration.

NDP Health Critic David Shepherd issued the following statement in response to the UCP’s announcement on continuing care accommodation costs:

“Providing a partial subsidy to rising accommodation charges is insufficient to help seniors at a time when the cost of everything is going up. To be clear, the accommodation charges only rise when authorized by the government.

“The UCP have consistently left seniors behind, from cutting the Seniors Benefit, imposing new fees for home care, and throwing 60,000 Albertans off the seniors’ drug plan.

“An Alberta NDP government will support seniors and residents in continuing care and supportive living by protecting the real value of benefits and repairing the damage to public healthcare caused by the UCP.”

(With files from rdnewsNOW)