Model discovered at Finnish Resthome

While visiting Sault Ste. Marie's Finnish Resthome, Winnipeg North MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis discovered a model.

Not the kind one finds on a runway.

But one that could provide several solutions to Canada's health care crisis.

Wasylycia-Leis is the New Democratic Party's health and disability critic.

She was in town yesterday to meet with area people involved with the disability and health care sectors.

Before meeting with the media, Wsaylycia-Leis toured several long-term care facilities, among them the Ontario Finnish Resthome and the Davey Home.

Those facilities, she said, are good examples of places that provide a high quality of care for their residents in a variety of settings.

The Finnish Resthome, in particular, caught Wsaylycia-Leis's eye because it offers a continuum of care from the client's home to full support - with a wide spectrum of options in between.

"The Sault is a perfect place to come to get grounded in what's important in terms of health care, to get some ideas about innovative projects and to take a message back to the health minister of Canada that it is time for the federal government ... to finally get back into the business of health care," she said.

She accused the current Conservative government of disowning health care, so that any hope of consistent access to services across the country is dying by a thousand cuts and stealth privatization.

Instead of approaching health care for Canadians as a single-payer, single-tiered system run by a not-for-profit administration, the government is leaving its seniors to fend for themselves, making them feel like a burden when they were the ones who contributed so much to making Canada the country it is today.

"It's absolutely critical that once and for all, this government finally implements the national home-care and community-care plan as well as a national pharma-care strategy," she said.

When Wasylycia-Leis first took a seat in the House of Commons about 12 years ago, her caucus thought those two policies would be implemented in just a matter of weeks.

But she said the Liberal government of the day shelved them and they've been buried deep under the present Conservative government.

A lack of federal involvement in health care has left Canada with a lot of inconsistencies and inequities that are straining caregivers and risking the lives of elderly people who need long-term care arrangements, Wasylycia-Leis said.

It means that people like the ones in Sault Area Hospital's alternative level of care beds will have nowhere to go when the present hospital moves to its new site, she aid.

"There is no transition plan in place for them," she said.

They, like many in other communities, will go home without home-care support and their health will deteriorate until they become acute again.

And then, they will return to the hospital, said Wasylycia-Leis.

A more cost-effective and humanistic solution, she said, would be to use some of the stimulus funding to build more facilities like the Ontario Finnish Resthome and to support seniors aging in their homes so serious illnesses requiring hospitalization can be better prevented.

Wasylycia-Leis also visited the Group Health Centre and met with the Algoma District Medical Association and the local Seniors Health Advisory Committee.