Alberta orders reviews after non-profit ships patient from hospital to motel
The Alberta government is promising greater oversight of aid agencies along with multiple investigations into what critics have dubbed the province’s “motel-medicine” solution.
“This situation shines a light on the need to look at what rules are in place to organizations who advertise themselves to provide services beyond just housing,” Social Services Minister Jason Nixon told reporters at the legislature Monday.
Nixon provided an update on a developing situation that made headlines more than a week ago.
CBC reported a man partially paralyzed by a stroke had been discharged from an Edmonton hospital under the care of Contentment Social Services and taken to a Travelodge just south of the city in Leduc.
His family told CBC his wheelchair couldn’t fit the motel room, he was fed fast food and no one properly cared for his hygiene.
More families have since come forward.
Nixon said that while anyone can choose where to go and what private services they may need for post-hospital care, there needs to be some quality control.
Continuing care facilities and landlords are already regulated, but Nixon said this case has highlighted an oversight gap around housing agencies that also offer laundry, personal care and other services.
“If you are an organization who then goes out with a website and says, ‘I provide housing, but I also provide blank,’ at that point we need to be able to look at what type of regulatory framework would work,” Nixon said.
Nixon said the province has been able to determine how 27 Contentment clients ended up getting cared for in commercial lodgings in Leduc.
He said they had all been medically cleared to live on their own with community support. He said the majority were recipients of Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped.
Nixon said most had been living in apartments rented by Contentment when they were taken two weeks ago to the Travelodge.
There was to be a longterm arrangement at the Travelodge, but that fell through, Nixon said, adding there were unpaid bills there.
Contentment then tried to get back into the apartments it had vacated, Nixon said, but trouble arose because some were getting rented out to other tenants and part of the building was being fumigated.
An Alberta police oversight agency will investigate a 30-hour standoff in Calgary that left one person dead.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, known as ASIRT, is reviewing what happened after police tried to serve a warrant on a house in Calgary’s east end on March 14 and were met with gunfire.
Nearby expressway traffic was rerouted and area residents were forced to stay out of their homes or take shelter for more than a day while the lone person in the house fired at officers.
ASIRT, in a news release, says the standoff ended around 8:40 p.m. the next day when more shots were fired at police and the man barricaded inside the house appeared at the back door.
The agency says the man, carrying a shotgun, was then shot by police and pronounced dead moments later.
Calgary police and Mounties were involved in the standoff.