What a Deranged Man with
a Knife Didn’t Do, Alison Redford’s Government May Just Accomplish
Heidi
Janz, PhD
Five years ago, a man entered my apartment,
demanded money, and began choking and stabbing me. He later, reportedly, told
police that he had raised his knife to stab me in the chest, but a bright light appeared out of nowhere,
scaring him so much that he stopped and fled.
Five years later, my existence is once again being
threatened. But, this time, the threat isn’t coming from a deranged knife-wielding
man; it’s coming from a provincial government that, I thought, was sworn to uphold my human rights. And I am becoming
increasingly convinced that, once again, nothing short of Divine intervention
will save my life, as I know it,
I live in Creekside Condominiums, and have my
Homecare service provided by Creekside Support Services (CSS), a user-run
cooperative for residents of Creekside who require homecare. With the support that CSS has been able to
provide over the past 16 years, our members have been able to go to school,
work, volunteer in the community and are participating fully in society. In my
case, the flexible support that CSS has provided me has made it possible for me
to work as a Professor at the University of Alberta, travel to speak at
conferences, etc. The demise of CSS will in effect herald the end of my active
career. This is my ultimate reward for a lifetime of striving to be a
contributing member of society.
The unilateral decision of AHS to force all
Albertans needing Homecare to entrust themselves to multi-national, for-profit
service providers amounts to a willful negation of more than 3 decades of
struggle by Albertans with disabilities for full inclusion in society. We are
totally frustrated by the lack of consultation by Alberta Health Services and
their failure to even let us know that this move was contemplated. Through the implementation of this
policy, AHS will remove the flexible
model of service delivery that has enabled us to participate in
society. We will again become
isolated. Furthermore, we will no longer have any real say in how, when, or by
whom our essential personal care
services will be provided. This
poses a very real danger to our safety.
In fact, my 89-year-old father is so worried about
my safety once my current
caregivers are forced to leave that he is making plans to move into my condo to
help care for and protect me.
My parents grew up in Germany under Adolf Hitler. I
grew up listening to their harrowing storie of human rights evaporating as strangers barged into their homes at will and informed them of what they were to do.
My parents also talked about people who had (or were thought to have) disabilities randomly disappearing from their
villages.
These days, to my disbelief and horror, I find
myself relating to these stories in ways that I never have before.
Is this really
the kind of province that Albertans want to live in? For all our sakes, I pray not.
