Skip to main content

It is a sad day in the Manitoba Legislature when a person asks a simple question which falls under the Premier's mandate and he will not take responsibility

Tuesday October 8, I asked the Premier what he will do to address the high number of falls being experienced by individuals in Manitoba's personal care homes.  I cited specifically the case of Heather Houston's father who had 22 separate falls in three different health care institutions in Winnipeg.  Instead of taking the responsibility which is his, he tried to divert the responsibility to the federal government, and he tried to suggest I was being abusive in asking the question.   It is not the federal government's responsibility to make sure personal care homes are run in a way that residents are not falling.  It is the Premier and the Minister of Health's responsibility.  Even  if one were to argue that the federal government has a role in funding health care, the Premier is not off the hook because he has been receiving big increases in health care funding from the federal government and he has not been using the money on health care and he has not been using the money budgeted for health care effectively to provide the quality of services that Manitobans need.  My question and the Premier's response is below.  

Personal-Care Homes - Accidental Fall Prevention
Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Madam Speaker, Heather Houston's father had 22 falls while he was at St. Boniface Hospital, Parkview Place and Middlechurch personal-care homes. This is an extraordinary number of falls. My sense is that the reason for this many falls is that more staffing is needed, as is more training specific to prevention of falls.
      Ideally, a person like Heather's father should be able to be in these institutions without a single fall.
      I ask the minister: What is he going to do to eliminate such accidental falls in Manitoba's health-care facilities?
Hon. Brian Pallister (Premier): Here we go again, Madam Speaker, with a shameful abuse of a situation that calls for higher thinking.
      I would ask the members opposite to understand, in the Liberal caucus, that we have had premiers all across this country, regardless of political stripe–Liberal premiers, New Democratic premiers, Conservative premiers, too–have asked repeatedly for a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss health-care funding.
      The No. 1 priority for Canadians, and we can't get a meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada–four years in a row, back to back to back to back.
      Madam Speaker, part of the reason that this Chamber has not got unanimous support for such a measure used to be that we had two independent members here, but we don't anymore. And now we simply mean–we simply need the Liberal caucus to join with the NDP and the PCs and ask for a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss health-care funding so we can move forward together in a partnership to strengthen the quality of care for all Manitobans in the future.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dougald Lamont speaks at Meth Forum last night to present positive ideas to address the epidemic, while exposing the lack of action by the Pallister Conservatives

Last night at the Notre Dame Recreation Centre in St. Boniface, at an Election Forum on the Meth Crisis in Manitoba, Dougald Lamont spoke eloquently about the severity of the meth epidemic and described the Liberal plan to address it.  The Liberal Plan will make sure that there is a single province-wide phone number for people, or friends of people, who need help dealing with meth to call (as there is in Alberta) and that there will be rapid access to a seamless series of steps - stabilization, detoxification, treatment, extended supportive housing etc so that people with meth addiction can be helped well and effectively and so that they can rebuild their lives.  The Liberal meth plan will be helped by our approach to mental health (putting psychological therapies under medicare), and to poverty (providing better support).  It will also be helped by our vigorous efforts to help young people understand the problems with meth in our education system and to provide alternative positive
3 comments
Read more

Manitoba Liberal accomplishments

  Examples of Manitoba Liberal accomplishments in the last three years Ensured that 2,000 Manitoba fishers were able to earn a living in 2020   (To see the full story click on this link ). Introduced a bill that includes retired teachers on the Pension Investment Board which governs their pension investments. Introduced amendments to ensure school aged children are included in childcare and early childhood education plans moving forward. Called for improvements in the management of the COVID pandemic: ·          We called for attention to personal care homes even before there was a single case in a personal care home. ·            We called for a rapid response team to address outbreaks in personal care homes months before the PCs acted.  ·          We called for a science-based approach to preparing schools to   improve ventilation and humidity long before the PCs acted. Helped hundreds of individuals with issues during the pandemic including those on social assistance
Post a Comment
Read more

The Indigenous Science Conference in Winnipeg June 14-16

  June 14 to 16, I spent three days at the Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference.  It was very worthwhile.   Speaker after speaker talked of the benefits of using both western or mainstream science and Indigenous science.  There is much we can learn from both approaches.   With me above is Myrle Ballard, one of the principal organizers of the conference.  Myrle Ballard, from Lake St. Martin in Manitoba, worked closely with Roger Dube a professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, and many others to make this conference, the first of its kind, a success.  As Roger Dube, Mohawk and Abenaki, a physicist, commented "My feeling is that the fusion of traditional ecological knowledge and Western science methodology should rapidly lead the researchers to much more holistic solutions to problems."   Dr. Myrle Ballard was the first person from her community to get a PhD.  She is currently a professor at the University of Manitoba and the Director of Indigenous Science
Post a Comment
Read more