Home economics: We are worried Fair Deal may turn out to be a bad deal for us, as Mum's condition has worsened
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My mother has been in hospital for several months while waiting on a nursing home bed, which will shortly become available. We applied for and got Fair Deal, so are not anticipating any issues with the transfer.
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National Observer
3 days ago
- National Observer
Danielle Smith is putting out a fire with gasoline
Here we go again. Faced with another surge in separatist sentiment in Alberta, the UCP government has decided to strike a panel in an attempt to let off some of the political steam it has spent the last two years deliberately creating. As with former premier Jason Kenney's 2019 'Fair Deal' panel, Danielle Smith's 'Alberta Next' will tour the province in an attempt to give their supporters an opportunity to vent about the federal government and its supposed hostility towards Alberta. In the process, it will whip up the very frustrations it claims to want to address. In reality, Smith's panel is an elaborate (and expensive) exercise in manufacturing consent, one that will cost Alberta time and political oxygen that would be better spent addressing its real challenges. It's an obvious attempt to distract Albertans from her government's growing list of failures, ones that range from a messy attempt to reorganize the healthcare system (and open the door to more private sector involvement) to a shameful surrender to Australian coal-mining magnates. Oh, and there's the ongoing ethical scandal that began with her government's ill-fated purchase of Turkish tylenol, one that seems to keep metastasizing with each passing month. The premier's 15-member panel, which is headlined by Environment Minister Rebecca Schultz, three UCP MLAs and a predictable assortment of oil and gas executives and business leaders, will assess ways in which Alberta can 'better protect ourselves from Ottawa's attacks.' It's worth reiterating that said 'attacks' have resulted in record-high production from the oil sands, the first LNG facility in Canadian history, and the expansion of TMX, which will deliver billions of dollars in additional revenues for both oil companies and the Alberta government. If the premier is unclear about that last point, she can ask Trevor Tombe, the University of Calgary economist who ran those numbers — and sits on her shiny new panel. But facts like this are clearly going to have very little purchase over the findings of her panel, Tombe's presence notwithstanding. Let's use its public survey on immigration as an example here, and set aside its unmistakably xenophobic undertones for the moment. It begins with a three-minute video — one people can't click through — that's littered with partisan talking points about 'Justin Trudeau's Liberals' and even a few outright falsehoods. It talks about the need to 'counter Ottawa's open-border policies' and suggests 'Ottawa has ignored the request of Alberta and other provinces to cut refugee claimants and student visas.' But Ottawa already did that last year, and it's already resulted in the slowest population growth on record — and maybe in Canadian history. Smith's government isn't interested in actually gauging people's genuine opinions here. Its panel has been tasked with massaging and managing them, and the public survey portion — forced preamble and all — is little more than a publicly-funded push poll. The inevitable result will be a report that blames Ottawa for Alberta's frustrations and then makes a set of recommendations that either won't address them or can't actually be implemented — which, in turn, sows the seeds for even more frustration. This is not an accident. Danielle Smith knows she can't single-handedly amend the constitution, and that other provinces not named Saskatchewan and Quebec aren't going to indulge her fantasies. She knows that eliminating equalization would do nothing to actually change the flow of dollars between Ottawa and Alberta. She knows that collecting income taxes in Alberta would simply add expense and bureaucracy to a province that claims to hate both. And she knows the idea of an Alberta pension plan is a dead letter, as the government's own survey — one whose results it refused to release until compelled by the privacy and information commissioner and persistent hounding by Postmedia's Matthew Black — confirmed in glorious detail. None of these dogs are going to hunt. Most of them won't even get up off the carpet for a sniff. But Smith also knows that she'd much rather spend — or waste — time talking about these things rather than her own government's various failings. By keeping the focus on Ottawa and its supposed 'attacks' on Alberta, she is able to distract both the opposition NDP and her own party's constituency of increasingly rabid separatists. While the upstart Republican Party of Alberta may have only won 17.6 per cent of the vote in this week's byelection in Olds-Disbury-Three Hills, those votes appear to have come almost exclusively at the expense of the UCP. 'We are still here and fighting, and we aren't going away any time soon,' Republican Party of Alberta candidate (and leader) Cam Davies said. 'This is just the beginning.' Danielle Smith has spent years riling her supporters up against Ottawa with half-truths and flat-out-lies. Now, she's going to placate them with a panel. Sound familiar? It should: it's exactly what her predecessor, Jason Kenney, did in 2019. If Smith actually wanted to end the separatist threat in her province, she would stop feeding her supporters the endless diet of Ottawa-based grievances to which they've grown accustomed. Then again, maybe they'd just find someone else to feed their appetite for victimhood, just as they did when they turfed the last UCP leader. And so, they'll get another do-nothing panel that stokes their anger and spends their money without solving their problems. At some point, they might just figure out who their real problem is.
Irish Examiner
5 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Young people do not belong in nursing homes
One man with early onset Parkinson's is climbing the Himalayas active, empowered and supported. Another is trapped in a care home among residents twice his age, paying €3,000 a month while his savings and spirit drain away. He can't even go for a walk out of the grounds without permission. I've met these men — both under 65 and both with lives worth living. The man living in a nursing home is not merely another wasted life, he is a person too. Prime Time Investigates exposed what we've known for years: the shameful institutionalisation of people under 65, leading to rapid physical and mental decline. Today, 1,227 remain in nursing homes. In 2025, the HSE asked for €8.5 million to relocate 40 people — sounds like progress, right? Until you realise only €4.8 million was allocated, enough to move just 24 people. Over four years, 104 people have been moved out of nursing homes, while 32 more are added every month (Wasted Lives Update, 2024). The maths doesn't add up — and neither does the morality. I've lived with early onset Parkinson's for a decade — a condition affecting 10–20% of people with Parkinson's, with members of our organisation symptomatic as young as 20 years old. With 18,000 living with Parkinson's in Ireland, as many as 3,600 people aged 18 to 55 are at risk of being sent to a nursing home should they experience rapid progression, or symptoms become unmanageable alone. This is not to mention the countless others living with neurodegenerative conditions. I've met people living this nightmare — like a man in his 30s with Cerebral Palsy, placed in a nursing home alongside residents his parents' age. With both parents in long-term dementia care and no community supports available, he was sent there. His fear? That he might never get out. And what about the families? Under the Fair Deal scheme, 80% of a person's assessable income and 7.5% of their assets per annum, are paid towards nursing home care. In the case of early onset conditions what happens to the mortgage, the family left behind, the children still in school? The financial devastation affects everyone. I'm lucky to have a supportive husband, four amazing children, family and friends. I'm doing my best to live well. But many I've met aren't so fortunate. They're institutionalised, cut off from vital therapies like physio, exercise, and neurology that could slow disease progression. Their savings vanish, they're isolated from peers, and their mental and physical health decline as their independence slips away, day by day. This practice is not new. Nor is it an accident. The Wasted Lives report in 2021, laid bare the systemic failings, and since this, the Government repeated promises to end the institutionalisation of young people in nursing homes. What do these promises mean to the young man in his 30s with Cerebral Palsy? Nothing. His life hasn't changed. The government has, but his reality has not. Slow erosion of dignity Having just retired from my role as a dementia adviser in Clare, I have seen how the system fails people. I've seen the heartbreak, the isolation, and the slow erosion of dignity. I've also seen community workers and healthcare staff stretch every resource and contact to find funding and support often forcing them to act first and ask forgiveness later in the hopes of a better outcome. It appears that the €4.8 million allocation is a one-off fund, as there is no indication that funding has been committed for the many years that would be required to solve this crisis. That is not a strategy. It is an insult. Especially when the Government claims its commitment to ending this practice. What happens next year? What happens to the hundreds still living in no man's land. Fiona Staunton: 'Having just retired from my role as a dementia adviser in Clare, I have seen how the system fails people. I've seen the heartbreak, the isolation, and the slow erosion of dignity.' We need real, long-term investment in community supports, as promised in Sláintecare. Clear exit pathways must be created for those already institutionalised and we need transparent, updated data on how many of these people are wrongly placed in nursing homes — including those stuck in hospital beds waiting for nursing home spots. We need full, informed consent — because I can tell you now, no young person willingly chooses this as a long-term path. This shameful practice must end. Being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease should not mean your human rights are stripped away. We are not statistics. We are people with hopes, with families, friends, and with futures. One of the myriad symptoms of Parkinson's is a softening — and even loss — of one's voice. However, on this issue, we will continue to shout until our voices are heard, until there are no more wasted lives. Fiona Staunton is a Board Member, EOPD Ireland Dementia Adviser (retired), The Alzheimer Society of Ireland Person living with Early Onset Parkinson's Disease Parkinson's Advocate
Irish Independent
12-06-2025
- Irish Independent
HIQA to be called before the Public Accounts Committee over nursing home inspections
The decision to invite the quality authority comes after an RTÉ Investigates undercover exposé showing neglect of residents in two nursing homes, including Beneavin Manor in Glasnevin, which the watchdog had previously assessed. At a meeting of PAC on Thursday, the committee members agreed that the watchdog would be invited before the committee. 'I think it's been eight years since [HIQA] came before the Public Accounts Committee, and I think it's about time to do again. I think it's a failure of the state, really, that our older people are being treated in this way when they should be given the dignity and respect they deserve as they age,' Labour TD Eoghan Kenny said. 'If a person across the country had an older person, a member of their family in a nursing home, I think they would have been really struck by the fact that inspectors from HIQA actually came to a number of those nursing homes and found no fault and I think that has to be questioned,' he added. Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe, whose constituency area includes Beneavin Manor, said he had received a number of calls from the public who were concerned for the people and relatives in the nursing home after seeing the programme. 'I think we can say, very easily, it's a neglect in basic care and there has to be accountability. Individual accountability for staff, there has to be accountability within the company, the corporate entity, and I think we shouldn't allow any investigation we carry out to absolve those people of what happened,' Mr McAuliffe said. Mr McAuliffe said while HIQA's examination of nursing homes must be questioned, the Nursing Home Support Scheme must also be scrutinised. 'I think the funding of the Nursing Home Support Scheme, which is the 'Fair Deal' scheme, I think has to also be examined, because my understanding is far in excess of €6 million was paid into the Beneavin campus, and that's a significant amount of money,' Mr McAuliffe said. 'And if you don't have basic material, if you don't have basic hygiene products to hand, I have to ask myself a question, is that a matter for HIQA, or is that a matter for the company, who are actually running the organisation?' he added. A gap in the committee's schedule in July was the proposed date put forward by Social Democrats TD Aidan Farrelly, and the committee agreed to invite HIQA to attend. The RTÉ Investigates programme showed a litany of care failings. They included the inappropriate handling of some residents of the nursing home, lack of supply for basic supplies and a chronic level of staff shortages. While Emeis Ireland, the company that runs Beneavin Manor, issued an apology to residents and their family members, HIQA is now reviewing all nursing homes run by the company.
