Klein vows to improve seniors' care

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has promised to make improvements after an auditor general's report showed one-third of long-term care homes for seniors failed to meet basic standards.

In a report released on Monday, provincial Auditor General Fred Dunn said his inspection of 25 of Alberta's 179 long-term care facilities points to a number of problems. Only seven of the 25 homes fully met standards for providing and managing medications.
 
Carol Woda and her mother. 
"The standards are out-of-date, monitoring of compliance is inadequate," said Dunn. "We found facilities are not meeting standards for providing medication to residents."

At one home studied in the report, workers sedated residents who couldn't sleep between midnight and 2 a.m., leaving them to fall asleep in wheelchairs beside the nursing stations.

"At the end of the day it's not a flattering report," said Dunn.

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