An Okotoks health-care worker said she was protesting with approximately 100 people at the local wellness centre to protect her job and to keep quality home-care in the community on Dec. 22.
“I do home-care out of the Okotoks Health and Wellness Centre and I am here because I still want a job,” said Andrea Pyle, a health-care aide. “(I’m) basically a nurse’s assistant. We go out and we see the clients in the community to help them stay in their homes longer.
“So they don’t cost the health-term system more of an expense in a long-term care bed.”
A rally of about 100 people consisting of Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), health-care workers and the public, gathered in front of the Okotoks Health and Wellness Centre to protest the Alberta government's proposed cuts to the health-care system and the resulting loss of provincial employees' jobs.
Maryjane Fisher of Okotoks has worked with Alberta Health Services for 13 years, and said she was there to protest the potential loss of jobs and service to health-care.
“We are here to fight back and say we won’t tolerate that,” said Fisher, who use to work at the Okotoks health centre but is now at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in Calgary. "We have people who use our home-care services and they are all going to be suffering…. What this means to Okotoks is all of their loved ones who are receiving home-care services, it might be privatized out.
“You will be losing your heath-care aides, you’ll be losing your nurses... the people that you have known forever that have been taking such amazing care for you.”
Fisher said because of her seniority her job is likely not in jeopardy.
“I have job security because I have been with AHS for 13 years,” Fisher said. “But we have a lot of amazing young nurses that are going to be losing their positions."
Michelle Goldstone, the AUPE Local Chapter chair, which includes home-care in Okotoks, said it has been informed by the government that home-care is threatened to be privatized.
“We think that is going to be a lot bigger expense to our taxpayers,” said Goldstone, a health-care aide out of Okotoks. “I am worried that home-care will be privatized. I don’t think they can get the capacity or care that we do as a private-for-profit (organization).”
