Union really cooking with seniors’ food video

Re: “Roasting the government,” Editorial, July 30

Years ago, former alderman Barb Scott, as committee chairman, asked me if I would agree to serve as a citizen member of the Metropolitan Calgary Foundation (now Silvera), which administered government-owned affordable seniors’ accommodation.

Initially, a monthly meeting was held in different seniors’ residences, with the board members sitting in front of the senior residents. When asked if they had any suggestions or problems, the residents were silent.

At Barb’s recommendation, we began, instead of having structured meetings, going at lunch time where each of us would sit at a table with three residents. Suddenly, complaints and concerns were voiced. Barb had been correct in her perception that, in a larger setting, residents felt intimidated.

At the lunches, many were still nervous about complaining because they realized their accommodation was being subsidized and they were worried they might be disciplined or asked to move out.

These worries were not without merit. When some women complained that the matron at their establishment would not allow them to wear slacks, and Barb insisted on changing that protocol despite resistance from the paid staff, the matron quit rather than lose her position of control.

Kudos to AUPE for taking on a role that could have, and should have, been addressed by some of the residents’ families, had they taken the time to visit regularly at mealtime and seen the conditions in which their loved ones were living.

Marian Burke, Calgary

Calgary Herald Archive Herald restaurant critic John Gilchrist samples food served at a long-term care home, in a video by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees. Reader says the union deserves thanks for exposing the problem.