Manitoba NDP to allow private home-care contracts to expire if elected

Manitoba's New Democrats promise they won't renew a pair of private home-care contracts if the party returns to power next week.

Sitting in the home of a couple that uses home care in Winnipeg's Agassiz-neighbourhood, NDP leader Wab Kinew pledged Sunday his party would not renew a pair of contracts with home-care providers WeCare and ParaMed Home Health Care when they expire in 2020.

The contracts are worth $15.7 million, Kinew said.

The NDP leader opined private home care is inferior to public home care and claimed there is more staff turnover among private firms. He also claimed private companies spend less time with their clients.

"Our concern with private delivery ofhome care is that the home-care workers get paid less in that model," Kinew said. "Overall, it introduces a profit motive, where the real focus should be on delivering care for patients."

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Kinewclaimed the Progressive Conservative government has plans to privatize home care and complained of a cut to a program that helped seniors transition out of hospital care to their homes.

PC Morden-Winkler candidate Cameron Friesensaid the party has improved upon home care since it took power in 2016.

"Wab Kinew and the NDP are more concerned about whether home-care workers have union cards than ensuring people get the treatment they need when they need it," Friesen said in a statement.

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