Sask. government must help longtime advocate for low-income Weyburn residents with health care: NDP

A longtime Weyburn volunteer and advocate for people in need is now in need of help himself.

Fred Sandeski, 71, founded the Community Low Income Centre in Weyburn, Sask., and ran it for about 20 years, and has also advocated for people in need of housing.

Now, he and his wife, Teresa Sandeski, are in a financial pinch of their own.

Fred suffers from advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, as well as epilepsy and a visual impairment. Teresa normally takes care of him, but she recently needed kidney surgery, so Fred was placed into respite care at a special-care home in Weyburn for a month.

Once the month was up, Fred was told by the province he must pay to stay in care, he said, which the couple can't afford.

"The seniors' care staff was excellent," he said.

"It's just that almighty dollar gets in the way. I understand where they're coming from. They need to get paid, but I don't understand why the policy and regulations stipulate that this has to be done."

Teresa will have more surgery Friday morning, and Fred says he doesn't know where he is going to go. 

The cost for his care is around $1,380 per month, or $50 per day. Fred relies on his pension, while Teresa receives Old Age Security. 

"If you take my pension out of the equation of our budget, my wife wouldn't have enough to live on. And that was my biggest fear — making sure my wife was covered, was looked after," Fred said. 

The NDP brought the couple's issue up in the legislature Wednesday. Keith Jorgenson, the Opposition critic for seniors, called the situation "heartbreaking."

"There's a couple that can't afford both hospice care and also to basically pay their rent — so they're being asked to choose between maintaining a residence and for … the husband to be able to die with dignity," Jorgenson said. 

The issue is representative of a larger crisis in long-term care, Jorgenson said, and he wants to see the province cover the cost of Fred's hospice care.

Fred said he tried to reach out to the government and his local MLA, Michael Weger, but could not get through over the phone. The Ministry of Health eventually got back to him and said they're looking into it, he said.