Group decries privatization of senior care

The Quebec government is quietly privatizing a significant portion of long-term care for seniors and allowing private seniors’ residences to offer a broader range of services with less stringent requirements, a coalition of public organizations claimed Monday.

The group, under the banner of the Réseau FADOQ (formerly Fédération de l’âge d’or du Québec), made the charge after analyzing proposals relating to the certification of private residences for seniors presented last month.

It said the proposals allow all seniors’ residences whose clientele is not entirely autonomous to have a designated area where health professionals can offer walk-in care. Residents would be required to pay from their pocket for services whose quality might not be of the same standard as for provincial CHSLDs (long-term care centres), which unlike the private residences, are overseen by the Quebec Health Department.

The group — which includes the Fédération interprofessionelle de la santé du Québec, Le Conseil pour la protection des malades and lawyer Jean-Pierre Ménard — said the private residences should be made to comply with the same conditions required for a CHSLD permit.

It maintains the proposals are a further step in a government disengagement toward seniors and a further step in the privatization of services available to them.

There are 4,000 people on CHSLD waiting lists, it said, and the number of seniors keeps growing.

While there is more space available on the private side, residences offering high levels of care are inaccessible to most seniors because their annual cost averages $27,241 per year, $10,000 more than the median revenue of women aged 75 or older, the main clientele of seniors’ residences, the group claimed.