Thomson: Decision feels hurried.
Michener Centre decision feels hurried, half-baked
As if the Alberta government wasn’t facing enough criticism over the new provincial budget, it made things even worse for itself on Monday.
Just four days after unveiling the province’s hold-theline fiscal plan, the government announced it will shut down the Michener Centre in Red Deer, which houses 125 adults with developmental disabilities.
That sparked immediate condemnation from critics who accused the government of trying to save money on the backs of the most vulnerable in society. And you won’t find any citizens of Alberta more vulnerable than residents of the Michener Centre.
Most of them have been in the centre for decades — 50 of them are senior citizens, the oldest being 97. Many of them arrived at the institution when it had a name that could have come from a Charles Dickens novel: the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives.
The notorious “training school” was ground zero for the province’s eugenics program that forcibly sterilized almost 2,822 young Albertans between 1928 and 1972.
The centre today is obviously a much different place than it was then. But the one thing that connects the Michener Centre of today with the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives of yesterday is the notion of largescale institutionalization of the disabled.
Shutting down the centre changes that.
The government says the closure will be phased in over the next year to move the adults to “more personalized care in the community.” Frank Oberle, associate minister of services for people with disabilities, insists the closure was not driven by the provincial budget, that it is not some sort of cold-hearted move to save a few dollars.
In fact, moving the residents to group homes will cost the government an extra $10 million this year, and Oberle said the cost savings, if any, will be negligible in the years to come.
“That’s absolutely not what it’s about,” Oberle said. “If we do realize any savings, 100 per cent of it will stay within the disabilities services envelope, so it’s not about savings.”
What it’s about, said Oberle, is getting people out of the old-style institutions and into community care: “Historically, institutional living was considered to be the best way to support individuals with developmental disabilities, but that’s just not the case anymore.”
But he admitted the timing of the announcement, coming so close to the provincial budget, is a “little bit unfortunate.” Indeed. So, why announce it now? Oberle said he was caught in a time crunch.
He couldn’t announce the move before the budget because he needed approval for the $10-million transition cost to move residents out over the next year. And he couldn’t hold off the announcement because the province is moving into contract talks with public service unions that represent the centre’s 260 permanent and 150 temporary staff members.
To withhold the decision would have been seen as bargaining in bad faith, said Oberle.
The result, though, seems rushed. We don’t know if there’ll be enough beds for the 125 residents or what kind of care they will receive.
We also don’t know what will happen to the centre’s staff except that there will be layoffs. It sounds like there are no contingency plans for the 150 temporary staff. Oberle says of the 260 permanent staff, 125 will be transferred to other jobs and of the remainder “a tremendous number are eligible for retirement.”
However, even though there have been discussions for years about shutting down the Michener Centre, Monday’s announcement had a hurried, half-baked feel to it, raising all kinds of questions and warning flags.
“It’s the right thing to do but I take absolutely no pleasure in doing this today,” Oberle said.
“If people’s loved ones have been in this facility for 40 or 50 or longer years, I recognize that it’s just got to be gut-wrenching and it’ll be difficult. We’ll work through it with people and I’m confident we’ll get better outcomes.”
Despite being pummelled by the opposition parties and unions for making a hasty and ill-thought decision, the government does have some key allies on its side.
The Alberta Association for Community Living, for example, issued a news release that praised Monday’s announcement as “a momentous day of celebration for all Albertans as we join almost every province in Canada in ending the large-scale institutionalization of Albertans. … Many decades of evidence across the western world have proven time and time again that institutions are far more likely to place vulnerable individuals at risk and limit their potential.”
The key issue here is properly caring for “vulnerable individuals,” particularly those once deemed, in the archaic and damaging language of previous governments, to be “mental defectives.”
They deserve to be treated with respect and care.
The word “budget” shouldn’t enter into it.