N.S. seniors advocates impressed by commitment to long-term care, but hope it won't be forgotten after election

HALIFAX -

In his 25 years of advocating for seniors, Bill VanGorder says this is the first election where all three major parties are prioritizing long-term care.

"Our hope at this point is that this won't be forgotten after the election is over and hopefully as COVID winds down," said Bill VanGorder of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP).

The NDP is pitching to build a single room for everyone who wants one and legislate smaller staff to patient ratios.

The Progressive Conservatives are vowing to create 2,500 single bedrooms and hire 2,000 more staff.

The Liberals are promising to build 500 new beds, renovate nearly 2,000 and train hundreds more staff each year.

Another seniors advocacy group, Advocates for Care of the Elderly, has graded the parties Giving the liberals a C -, the NDP a B + and the PCs an A.

"The PCs are out in front with going to commit a significant amount of attention to long term care and health care in general," said Gary MacLeod of Advocates for the Care of the Elderly.

Here's what representatives of Nova Scotia's three main political parties had to say.

• PC LEADER TIM HOUSTON: "We're very proud of their assessment of it . We put a lot of work into it, a lot of thought into it. We listened to people impacted by long-term care.
• NDP LEADER GARY BURRILL: "Everyone of the nearly 8,000 residents of long term care in Nova Scotia under an NDP government will be able to have their own room."
• LIBERAL ZACH CHURCHILL: "We have a team in the department of health that looks at the demographic pressures we're experiencing, that does modelling to determine how many new beds we are going to need in our system and we're following the evidence."

VanGorder believes it's difficult to judge which platform is best because they all have different approaches.

What he'll be judging Is whether anyone acts.

"What CARP will be doing will be holding whosever feet to the fire to make sure what they say they're going to do, they actually do and for anyone of those sets of promises, that would be a huge improvement," VanGorder says.