BC Seniors Advocate hears concerns during whistle stop tour of West Kootenay
By Lone Sheep Publishing
Isobel Mackenzie is retiring in a few months after spending the past 10 years as BC Seniors Advocate.
But that did not stop the province’s first seniors advocate for making a whistle stop tour of the West Kootenay last week.
Mackenzie, who recently announced that she is stepping aside, was in Nelson Thursday to address a crowd of 35 at the Senior Centre on Vernon Street in a Town Hall Meeting.
Mackenzie, with more than 20 years working with seniors in home and led BC’s largest not-for-profit agency that served most than 6,000 seniors annually, outlined a report of specific challenges seniors living in rural communities are facing during the almost two-hour meeting.
Some of the recommendations included:
- Develop and implement a Rural Seniors Housing Strategy
- Develop and implement a Rural Health Human Resource Strategy
Develop and implement a Rural Senior Home and Community Care Strategy - Develop and implement a Provincial Long-Term Care and Assisted Living Plan Based on Equity Throughout the Province
- Develop and implement Provincial Rural Transportation Strategy
- Improve and Better Promote both Provincial Assistance Program and Hope Air
- Increase Rural Representation in Government through the creation of a Ministry or Minister of State for Rural BC
- The Town Hall was sponsored by the Nelson and District Seniors Coordinating Society.
The Province announced that Mackenzie will be replaced by Dan Levitt, who is expected to begin the position in early April as the next advocate.
Levitt is the CEO at KinVillage, a not-for-profit care facility in Delta and is also also an adjunct professor in gerontology at Simon Fraser University and teaches in the school of nursing at the University of British Columbia.
Mackenzie continued the tour stopping in Kaslo Friday for a Town Hall Meeting at the Kaslo Seniors’ Hall. She also held meetings in Trail and Castlegar.
Seniors from Nelson were eager to listen to BC Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie during at Town Hall Meeting.
