Alta. government steps in after patients sent to hotels

CALGARY — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the province has stepped in to pay an outstanding $25,000 bill to a hotel where a social services agency dispatched patients in post-hospital recovery.

She says her government is trying to find appropriate housing for 39 clients of Contentment Social Services.

“What we discovered was substandard. There’s no two ways about it,” Smith told an unrelated news conference on Friday.

CBC has reported a stroke patient was discharged from the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton and taken to a Travelodge south of the city that couldn’t accommodate his wheelchair and where he was fed fast food and no one properly cared for his hygiene.

Another family has since come forward to CBC saying their loved one was sent to a hotel in Leduc, the Park Inn, after a stay in the same hospital.

An owner of that hotel told CBC that Contentment Social Services rented 30 rooms, hadn’t paid its bills and didn’t have people regularly caring for those guests.

Smith said Seniors and Community and Social Services staff were on-site Thursday to sort things out.

“We paid the $25,000 unpaid bill on a credit card to make sure no one was evicted and we’re now going to be going through the process of finding appropriate support facilities,” said Smith.

“No one is going to be pushed out into a shelter.

Norton Smith, president of Contentment, told CBC hotel rooms were a temporary measure in an overburdened system.

“When a request comes in, and (it’s) an urgent request because of the need for beds at the hospital … we do our best to accommodate,” he said.