Monday, March 28, 2016

Nursing award deadline approaches

http://www.am800cklw.com/News/Headlines/Nursing-award-deadline-approaches

March 28, 2016 05:26 from Rob Shervill


Time is running out to nominate someone for the Lois Fairley Nursing Award. Presented annually by the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, it honours outstanding nurses in Windsor-Essex.
 
The award is named after RN Lois Fairley who spent her entire 38 year career at Grace Hospital.
Son, John Fairley, says response so far has been good. "We got a lot of nominations from Windsor and Essex County of outstanding nurse stories from all over, from families and co-workers and friends who know how important certain nurses have been through the year."

Nomination forms are available at www.windsoressexrnao.org.  The deadline is this Friday at 5 p.m.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

10 Secrets That Nurses Keep From Their Patients

12/31/2015 09:12 am ET | Updated Jan 21, 2016 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brie-gowen/ten-secrets-that-nurses-keep-from-their-patients_b_8881808.html 
  • Brie Gowen Brie is a part-time nurse and full-time mom. When she’s not chasing children, doting on her husband, or trying to catch up on laundry she enjoys writing.
I’ve heard it said that nurses are a secretive bunch, that they keep certain things under wraps from their patient and patient’s families. My first thought of a nurse not disclosing information to those he/she cared for seemed ludicrous. But then I thought, Well, perhaps that’s true.

After all, everyone has secrets, and even your nurse might be keeping something from you. The fact is that there are some things you don’t need to know, some truths you can’t handle, or some things that we would just never tell you if given the option.

I guess nurses are a secretive bunch. But if it’s right what they say, that the truth will set you free, then here are 10 secrets your nurse has been keeping from you.

1. That we’re exhausted!
Your nurse will never tell you how tired, fatigued or absolutely beat they are. You may say, “you look tired,” and we’ll answer honestly enough, but we’ll mostly make our exhaustion seem like less than it is.
You’ll never know just how much the stress can drain us, or how years of rotating shifts have made us just plain worn out. Cause we’ll never let on. You won’t know our feet are aching, and our brain is aching even more. When you ask surprised, “are you still here?!” we’ll just smile and nod, adding, “I still have four more hours.”

2. That giving your medicine is a big, frustrating deal.
Okay, I know, giving pills is what nurses do. Some patients may think that’s all we do. But what you will never know, what your nurse will never fully explain, is how really time-consuming and challenging our morning med pass may be.
We don’t just go grab a pile, put them in a cup, and saunter satisfied to your bedside. It’s so much more than that, even if it only takes you a second to swallow them.
Your nurse looks at every medication you have ordered, then makes certain she knows what each med is for. She will check for contraindications, possible side effects, and/or interactions with other meds you are on. She’ll make the decision if you need certain meds given or held until a later date.
There will possibly be phone calls to the physician to clarify an order, and if your nurse seems to be taking a bit to return, it might be because she had to run to the pharmacy for a medication of yours that wasn’t available.
Next your nurse is just hoping all the barcodes will scan!
Giving medications is no where near as easy as it looks, but your nurse will make it seem like a breeze.

3. That we “bend” the rules.
Usually if you ask your nurse for something the legitimate answer may be no, but your nurse will respond, “let me check on that.”
I’m not saying your nurse disregards doctor’s orders, but I am saying your nurse weighs the pros and cons of the directives set in place for your care. He/she usually knows just how far to push the envelope while maintaining safety, but ensuring patient satisfaction. It’s a fine balance to make certain you’re happy, or as happy as you can be in the hospital.

4. When we’re sick.
You might pick-up on when your nurse doesn’t feel well, but the majority of the time your nurse won’t disclose to you their own health. While naturally your nurse will stay home if battling a contagious disease, for most other illnesses your nurse will still show up to care for you.
You won’t know the chronic pain your nurse endures, or about the slipped disc in their back. They might involuntarily wince when they lift without thinking, but if you ask they’ll say, “I’m fine.”
Everyone knows nurses make the worst patients. So while we excel at caring for you, we might neglect ourselves, and we’ll seldom let on how bad we feel.
5. That our other patient just died.
In my critical care unit I’m usually right outside your door, if not right by your side. If you don’t see me for a while that may indicate things are not doing so well in another room.
When I return, perhaps visually flustered, I will apologize profusely for ignoring you. Bless your heart for being so understanding most of the time.
I’ll never be able to tell you why I was unavailable for a time, but occasionally it’s because my other patient has died. It won’t change how I care for you, except to make me work harder to get you well.

6. That our family is sick.
Working as a nurse usually doesn’t afford you the ability to leave at a moment’s notice when your child falls ill. Nurses will continue to care for their sick patients even when sickness is waiting for them at home.
Your nurse will never let on about their role as a caretaker for an aging parent, or how exhausting it may be to give the attention needed to a chronically sick child at home. They will instead give you 100% while at your bedside, because that’s their job.
We feel that while you’re here getting better that things should be about you. So we’ll probably keep our dealings with sickness away from work a private matter.

7. A striking family resemblance.
Here’s what I mean by that. It’s possible, highly likely in fact, that your nurse has been on the receiving end of the situation in which you find yourself. They have been that grieving, confused family member fighting for dad to pull through. Naturally, when they see you that striking resemblance to their own family member might be at the forefront of their mind.
For me it’s my mom. I see many patients whose case mimics my mother’s. I think of her each time, but I rarely say a word. She fought the good fight, but eventually went to her forever home. I’m pulling for you, so I usually keep that secret to myself.

8. How often we go to bat.
For you. Although a part of me would love to brag about it, in the end I do not. At least not to my specific patient.
Everywhere around the world nurses step away from the bedside, and they fight for the best interests of their patients. They go to bat for you always. They go head-to-head with physicians or other health care professionals, and present their case for what they desire for you. You will likely never know it, but we do. That’s our job, so we just keep the particulars to ourself.

9. How scared we were when we almost lost you.
Many of my peers might not use the word fear, or say that an acute situation scared them, but most will agree that when a patient crashes and things go bad that their body reacts.
Hearts race, stomachs clinch, and despite the liquid efficiency of the team, there’s a measure, albeit small, of worry. We want you to come back, and it honestly scares us that you might not.
But you will never know this. Not fully. We’ll tell you what happened, and honestly describe the events, but that moment of fear will have faded in the face of victory, and it will be purposely forgotten in favor of mutual rejoicing.

10. How we think about you off the clock.
I’m not sure if you know this or not, but when your nurse leaves your bedside they take a piece of you with them. They will wonder how you’re feeling, and will likely call the other shift on duty to see how you’re doing.
I often times tell a patient, “I’ll be praying for you,” but I wonder if they realize that I really do. Maybe that’s my little secret.
Maybe your nurse does keep secrets, but some things are just hard to put into words. Some incidents are indescribable, and other times it’s just best left unsaid.
I don’t want you to worry though. I promise we’ll tell you most everything else.

Congratulations Sun Parlor ONA Members



Labour peace at Sun Parlour Home

March 25, 2016 06:17 from Rob Shervill


A new contract has been ratified at the Sun Parlour Home in Leamington.
 
After being without one for the past two years, nurses have accepted a 2-year agreement retroactive to March of 2014.  Talks toward a new contract are expected to begin shortly.
 
The agreement covers about 30 employees who are members of ONA Local 8.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Nurses Know!







RN cuts are often justified as a cost cutting measure, yet studies show that RN care actually saves the system money by reducing the odds of complications and readmissions. #NursesKnow #OnPoli #CanLab Take Action: nursesknow.ona.org

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Failure to understand worker protection


No one knows better than front-line nurses that the N95 is not a perfect fit for health-care settings and can be very uncomfortable to use. But nurses and other health-care workers deserve to be protected.

Linda Haslam-Stroud, President Ontario Nurses' Association

 
In the SARS Commission report, "Spring of Fear," Justice Archie Campbell wrote, "There were two solitudes: infection control and worker safety....infection control failed to protect nurses..."
To the detriment of health-care workers and their patients across Ontario, this divide between the two solitudes has been permitted to persist.
The opening sentence in this CMAJ paper's abstract reveals infection control's continuing failure to understand fundamental worker protection. It talks about determining what "...facial protection should be used by health-care workers to prevent transmission of acute respiratory infection." Then it goes on to explain the research into the comparative protective abilities between an approved N95 respirator and a surgical mask, which isn't recognized anywhere in science-based standards as a form of respiratory protection.
If the researchers wanted to look at facial protection they should have examined visors, goggles and hoods, etc., not an N95, which while worn on the face, and which may provide a limited physical barrier, is not designed as facial protection.
On the other hand, if respiratory protection is the question, then yes, the N95, widely used in health-care, is an appropriate starting point. It is the lowest, scientifically and legally acceptable form of personal equipment for protecting workers from inhaling harmful particles. But why compare them to surgical masks? While also worn on the face, surgical masks were never designed, tested or approved to protect the wearer. Their function is to prevent the wearer from expelling contaminants, e.g. onto a patient or a sterile field.
The conclusion, as confounding to me as the faulty starting point of this research, is that the lowest form of respirator, the N95, doesn't appear to work in health-care settings. If valid, that means we need to determine why not and focus on solutions like fit-testing, education, training and even developing an ergonomic design better suited to health care. It cannot mean we take away real respirators from health-care workers.
Despite this, the authors seem to want to waste more time on building randomized control trials to compare respiratory protective capability between the N95, a respirator they say doesn't work, and the surgical mask, something that isn't even a respirator. One really has to ask what ethics board would ever approve sending a control group of healthy workers into a room contaminated with airborne disease wearing surgical masks, which are not actual respirators. Furthermore, what would be the point?
A true respiratory protection program, as outlined in Canadian Standards Association standard Z94.4-11, should be a key component of a comprehensive infection control program that controls risk to health-care workers and their patients. In accordance with the hierarchy of controls, personal protective equipment (PPE) like a respirator is the last line of defence against a hazard, and the responsible action when you've proven PPE doesn't do the job is to find out why and correct it, not remove the last thing standing between a worker and harm.
If a particular gown allows fluid penetration when dealing with bodily fluids, do you take it off and abandon protection altogether? Or do you look for something that will better protect the worker? When facing the risk of exposure to an inhalable contaminant, there is no legal or ethical foundation for reverting to absolutely no respiratory protection, which is what a surgical mask represents.
I frankly do not agree that anyone has proven N95s can't work in health care. With proper training, reinforcement, staffing and other support (all components of a legally required respiratory protection program, none of which were controlled for in the cited studies) N95s have a proven track record. In limited situations they can be very effective in protecting respiratory tracts of wearers, as evinced in their use in British Columbia where SARS was stopped in its tracks, and in tuberculosis treatment around the world.
No one knows better than front-line nurses that the N95 is not a perfect fit for health-care settings and can be very uncomfortable to use. But nurses and other health-care workers deserve to be protected. As we face a future laden with all kinds of potential threats from natural emerging diseases and bioterrorism, wouldn't our limited time and resources be better spent focusing our research and response efforts on developing respirators that will better protect health care workers?
Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN, President, Ontario Nurses' Association

Monday, March 21, 2016

Include Ontario Nurses in PTSD Law

Health hackathon opens registrations

http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/health-hackathon-opens-registrations

 Carolyn Thompson, Windsor Star

A snow bird in Florida has a heart attack and surgeons put in a stent. Months later, another heart attack sends the patient into an Ontario hospital.
One of the first questions that’s asked: where is your stent? Most have no idea.
That’s a problem one Windsor-based nurse is trying to solve, by developing a mobile application that could replace the cardboard stent records handed out after surgeries.
I had this idea and I didn’t really know who to call, what to do with it, how to take it to the next level,” said Kaitlyn Sheehan, a nurse who works at Windsor Regional Hospital and in Detroit.
Hacking Health is trying to come up with ideas like these — ways to merge technology and health care in a way that makes life easier for patients and saves time and money for doctors.
Last year, Sheehan won an award for her team’s work on building an app that could make her idea a reality. The project is still moving forward, heading toward testing.
This year, the cross-border event will be held at the University of Windsor. Registration is now open and spots fill up fast.
“Now, you go to the doctors and these days they don’t only prescribe medication but also mobile applications,” said Irek Kusmierczyk, director of partnerships for WEtech Alliance.
He said the mobile health market is worth something like $15 billion.
“It’s not just about improving health care. That is a focus. But it’s also about job creation,” he said. “This is about getting companies started in this field.”
Kaitlyn Sheehan, clinical practice manager at Windsor Regional Hospital's cardiac cath lab, Friday March 18, 2016.
Kaitlyn Sheehan, clinical practice manager at Windsor Regional Hospital’s cardiac cath lab, Friday March 18, 2016. Nick Brancaccio / Windsor Star
The event matches 250 participants — doctors, nurses, programmers, students — into teams that choose one idea and try to make it marketable.
Last year was the first cross-border Hacking Health ever.
“A lot of us weren’t sure what we were walking into when we first started,” said Steve Erwin, spokesman for the Windsor Regional Hospital. But by the end of the weekend, he was astounded by the strides forward teams had made: many had come up with practical, usable ideas that might just make hospital care better.
Imagine taking a blood sample at home and using your phone to figure out whether you had the flu. What about heading home after surgery with medicine and a mobile app to remind you when to take it? Maybe you could wear a piece of technology that would warn in advance of a heart attack.
A key component is matching doctors and nurses with the programmers who can make ideas happen. It combines real-world experience and needs with innovative tech sector workers.
“These are the people who are on the ground,” Kusmierczyk said. “hey see the challenges. They see the bottlenecks. They see the opportunities.”
There is about $30,000 of prizes to be won by teams, which recognize students, innovation and marketable ideas.
Kusmierczyk said this year he’s hoping to see a strong group of students from St. Clair College, which recently launched a mobile application development program.
This year he’s expecting teams may try to innovate more with wearable technology, like Fitbits and Garmin fitness trackers.
One change from last year is a new focus on helping teams continue the work after the weekend is over.
“We really, really want to focus on helping these ideas get to market,” he said.
To register, go to hackinghealth.ca.
ctthompson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/caroethompson

Sunday, March 20, 2016

International Day for the Elimination of Discrimination: March 21, 2016

Dear ONA members,
I am writing to ask each of you to join me in marking the 2016 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Monday, March 21.
Each year on this date, ONA joins with individuals, labour unions and other organizations worldwide to recognize this day, first declared by the United Nations back in 1966. ONA prides itself in being a Union that is committed to being a leader in Human Rights and Equity issues.
International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is part of the global fight to end all forms of racism and racial discrimination. As a union, ONA is committed to a world of justice and equality for all.
As registered nurses and allied health professionals, we recognize that racialized communities in Canada are three times more likely to be poor than other Canadians due to inequities in access to education, barriers to employment and low wages. We know that socio-economic factors play a large role in our patients' health, and that our Aboriginal communities suffer from persistent health and income inequality.
Fifty years after the declaration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we as human beings and front-line health care providers have good reasons to continue to fight.
Please join us in taking time to mark this important day. I invite you all to take a moment to reflect on racial discrimination. There are also events planned around the province. To learn more, visit ONA's website (http://www.ona.org/news_details.html?article_id=1136) which features more information, a downloadable poster for members and a list of events. Let's work to end racial discrimination for all.
Please remember to tell ONA if your Local has attended or arranged an event.
Let's end racial discrimination now.
In solidarity,
Linda
Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN
ONA President

RNs, NPs, RPNs – There's Room for all in Health Care

Last month, a Hamilton-based hospital announced more than 60 front-line Registered Nurse (RN) cuts to many departments and units, including in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The hospital noted that within this unit, it was "testing" replacing RNs with Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs).

We were all deeply concerned about the introduction of RPNs into this unit considering it’s a critical care area for premature babies. These patients are unpredictable and require the advanced assessment and the clinical and critical thinking skills of RNs. ONA voiced our concerns and advocated to reconsider this very rash decision.

The good news is that the hospital listened and it has rescinded the layoff notices to the RNs in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. 

Our strong advocacy and speaking out about RN cuts has worked. This time. For now.
ONA believes there is a place for RNs and RPNs in the health-care system. However, the gutting of RN positions and forcing RPNs to care for unpredictable, complex patients is putting the RPNs’ nursing licenses at risk.

Strong evidence

It’s a fact that employers across Ontario are replacing RNs with practical nurses or personal support workers. Yet the evidence is clear.

For every extra patient added to an average RN's workload, the risk of death and disease increases by seven per cent. Patients experience more sepsis, pneumonia, blood clots, bedsores, cardiac events and failure to rescue.

Where is the evidence? Well, to note but a few sources: they're herehere, here and here. These studies were published in medical journals and the evidence speaks for itself. Our patients are at risk with employers balancing their budgets on the backs of RNs.

Room for all in healthcare
Let me be very clear: There is room for Registered Nurses, Registered Practical Nurses, Nurse Practitioners and personal support workers in Ontario’s health-care system.
The main issue is ensuring that the appropriate skilled nurse is caring for patients dependent upon their needs.

RNs can work in any setting and with any type of patient, resident and client. RNs can care for those with any complexity of needs in unpredictable situations, whether it be in intensive care, surgical units, emergency departments, long-term care or in home-care settings.

RPNs are more appropriately used for the care of patients, residents and clients with less complex needs and with stable and predictable outcomes. Forcing practical nurses to care for unstable patients with unpredictable outcomes puts both the patient and the nurse's license to practice at risk.

As the government moves its Patients First agenda forward and removes the stable and predictable patients from hospitals, the unstable, high acuity and complex patients need to be cared for in hospitals by RNs. We need to have an increase in RN care in hospitals, not having RN care gutted.  

When employers are cutting RNs in areas such as neonatal ICU, emergency departments, critical care, cardiology, medical, surgical, labour and delivery, etc. – it raises many red flags. Employers are not using the evidence – they are simply cutting what’s most convenient and what will hurt patients the most.

Nurses know. We know that RN cuts will negatively impact patient, resident and client care.
In Solidarity,
Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN
President

Friday, March 18, 2016

Read the latest Front Lines!

The March edition of ONA's award-winning publication, Front Lines, is now available online. In this edition:
-Hospitals propose gutting wages, benefits, job security provisions: No contract for Hospital RNs.
--Members bring about significant changes to Kingston General Hospital.
-Getting all Your Bargaining Units on Board: One Local’s Nursing Week Success Story
-Nursing in the North: Challenging but rewarding.
-Duty to accommodate includes obligation to include common sense.
-Awards, wins and much more.


Thursday, March 17, 2016

850,000 Ontarians have reason to smile about their pensions

Not many people need reminding that 2015 was a terrible year for their investments. The main index in Toronto was down 11 per cent, and things only got worse in the New Year. Much worse, if you owned energy stocks.
But a bright spot for 850,000 people in Ontario’s public sector is that their pension funds bypassed the misery and came out ahead. These funds returned 5 and 6 per cent respectively last year, as revealed in their annual results released this month.
One is the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) with 390,000 members, which represents such groups as nurses, lab technicians and hospital housekeeping staff. Its assets grew by 5.12 per cent to $63.9 billion in 2015, and its funded position increased to 122 per cent. That means it has $1.22 on hand for every $1 it needs to pay out. A surplus, in other words.
The other is OMERS, the municipal employee plan that has 461,000 members including police officers, firefighters, paramedics and the non-teaching staff of school boards. Its funded position rose to 91.5 per cent and its assets by 6.7 per cent to $77 billion.
Canada’s public pensions come under a lot of fire. The main criticism is that the plans are too generous and get too much support from all of us at a time when private-sector pensions are disappearing.
You can certainly argue about the pros and cons of how the plans are set up, but you can’t argue with how they are managed.
As individual investors, we’d be lucky to match their performance. We don’t have the scale, expertise, or the long-term time horizon. But we can gain insights from the way they do things.
Here’s what the big pension funds’ results reveal.
Risk management: Big funds spread their holdings across different types of assets, types of businesses and global locations. The TSX fell 11 per cent last year, but Japan’s main exchange rose 17 per cent. Energy stocks did poorly, but technology companies did well.
Only 8.6 per cent of HOOPP’s publicly traded stocks are Canadian. OMERS’ biggest single stock holding is Microsoft Corp.
Diversification: A friend recently mentioned that her investments are 100 per cent in stocks, and those stocks are all Canadian banks. Blue chip for sure, but that’s a very high-risk approach.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board splits its holdings: 65 per cent stocks and other investments and 35 per cent bonds. The bonds may not offer huge returns, but they’re stable sources of income.
Both HOOPP and OMERS had higher returns from bond-like and private investments in 2015 than from stocks.
Sticking to a plan: Small investors often follow the news rather than a plan. If they don’t have a plan to begin with, any investment that comes along seems good because there’s nothing to compare it to. Or if they have a plan, they abandon it at the first sign of trouble.
HOOPP’s plan has two pieces aimed at its main goal, which is to have enough money to pay its pensioners. It has a hedge portfolio that invests in bonds and real estate, providing a stream of cash and inflation protection. It also has a growth portfolio that invests in stocks and other assets to increase returns.
Watching fees: Fees come off the top of your investments before you get a thing, and over time they really hurt your return. The big plans rely on in-house staff to buy and sell stocks, meaning they aren’t paying fees to brokers and investment dealers. OMERS’ management expense ratio is 0.65 per cent; the average Canadian mutual fund fee in 2015 was 2.2 per cent, which is paid before you make a thing. Sticking to the plan, trading less frequently and avoiding funds with high costs are a way to control your costs.
Patience: It’s the internet age, and we get impatient if our browser won’t load in under a second. Pension plans think decades or more ahead to make their bets to pay off. We’re not so lucky, but we can stick to quality and a plan.
The good news is that after a rocky start to 2016, the TSX has gained 14 per cent since its Jan. 20 low. Like the big pension plans, hopefully better things lie ahead for us too.


Wednesday, March 16, 2016

ONA Local 8 Registered Nurses - Night of Education and Action

ONA Local 8 Registered Nurses gathered together tonight for an education session on the RN/RPN Scope of Practice delivered by ONA professional practice specialists. After the education, the Registered Nurses discussed the impact on quality patient care and actions to continue to deliver the message that cutting RNs is not good for the Windsor-Essex County citizens! The RNs collected money to be donated to the Unemployed Help Centre.
Click the link for photos of the evening

Proud to be an ONA Registered Nurse

Local 8 Registered Nurses now have another way to be sure patients know they are being cared for by a registered nurse!

ONA RN Cuts Flatline, March 2016

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Guelph General Hospital Failing to Take Safety Seriously: RN assaulted, lack of protective equipment exposed

GUELPH — The Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) is appalled at the lack of safety at Guelph General Hospital that has come to light in several serious incidents recently. ONA has filed a grievance against the hospital and is looking for immediate mandatory violence prevention training, a system for flagging violent patients and panic buttons for nurses working in units who do not currently possess them.

"Guelph General Hospital has flouted the laws around workplace safety meant to protect not only our dedicated registered nurses, but our patients and their families as well," said ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN. "One of our members was injured when a patient became suddenly violent, grabbed the RN's wrist, hit her in the face with a full bottle of urine, bit, punched and kicked her. Help was not readily available to the RN.

"This veteran RN had to be treated for a laceration and a deep bite, had to have blood tests for HIV and hepatitis, and is on antibiotics after the urine splashed in her eyes, nose and mouth," notes Haslam-Stroud. "Not only did the hospital subsequently fail to inform the proper individuals, its Joint Health and Safety Committee and ONA until a full five days after the incident, but the failure to communicate resulted in the same patient assaulting a family member two days later."

In another incident, it was revealed that the hospital has failed to stock proper protective equipment. This came to light when a patient who was contaminated arrived by ambulance and there was no personal protective equipment for staff to don in order to decontaminate the patient, nor was there a proper bay to clean the patient. Staff took the patient outside to an ambulatory area to clean off the substance with soapy water.

"Guelph General should have taken workplace safety more seriously after the shooting incident in its ER last year," said Haslam-Stroud. "Clearly, this employer must be dragged into compliance with workplace safety laws, procedures and directives. What will it take before this employer takes the appropriate action to avoid its staff, family members and others from being injured? It is imperative that this hospital take safety concerns seriously. Instituting temporary, stop-gap measures after an incident is not acceptable."

ONA is the union representing 60,000 registered nurses and allied health professionals, as well as more than 14,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Look who has been cutting Registered Nurses? Is your health care in danger??

THE OTTAWA HOSPITAL
QUINTE HEALTH CARE
TRILLIUM HEALTH PARTNERS
HEALTH SCIENCES NORTH
BLUEWATER HEALTH
WINDSOR REGIONAL HOSPITAL
GREY BRUCE HEALTH SERVICES
GREY BRUCE HEALTH UNIT
ST. THOMAS ELGIN HOSPITAL
CAMBRIDGE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
GRAND RIVER HOSPITAL
HAMILTON HEALTH SCIENCES
ST. JOSEPH’S HEALTHCARE, HAMILTON
WILLIAM OSLER HEALTH CENTRE
BAYCREST HOSPITAL
UNIVERSITY HEALTH NETWORK
ST. MICHAEL’S HOSPITAL
HUMBER RIVER REGIONAL HOSPITAL
SOUTHLAKE REGIONAL HEALTH CENTRE
HOTEL DIEU GRACE HEALTHCARE
HURON PERTH HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE
LONDON HEALTH SCIENCES CENTRE
TILLSONBURG DISTRICT MEMORIAL
GUELPH GENERAL HOSPITAL
PROVIDENCE HEALTHCARE
NORTH YORK GENERAL HOSPITAL
LAKERIDGE HOSPITAL
ROSS MEMORIAL
ROUGE VALLEY HEALTH SYSTEM
BROCKVILLE GENERAL
HOTEL DIEU KINGSTON
PROVIDENCE ST. MARY’S ON THE LAKE
ARNPRIOR & DISTRICT MEMORIAL
CANADIAN BLOOD SERVICES, OTTAWA
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF EASTERN ONTARIO
CORNWALL COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
PERLEY RIDEAU VETERANS HEALTH CENTRE
REVEERAL LONG TERM CARE INC.
LONGFIELDS MANOR
ROYAL OTTAWA HOSPITAL HEALTH CARE GROUP
MUSKOKA ALGONQUIN HEALTHCARE
NORTH SIMCOE MUSKOKA CCAC
ORILLIA SOLDIER’S MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
ROYAL VICTORIA HOSPITAL
ALGOMA MANOR
HEALTH SCIENCES NORTH
NORTH BAY REGIONAL HEALTH CENTRE
SAULT AREA HOSPITAL
LAKE OF THE WOODS
MENO-YA-WIN HEALTH CENTRE (SIOUX LOOKOUT)
RUNNYMEDE HEALTHCARE CENTRE

Be part of our virtual rally!!!

Follow this link to join the rally!

With one click you and your contacts in Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr will all receive a message about the cuts to health care!

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/37268-the-truth-hurts-nurses-know?locale=en

Currently there are 352 people signed up > through them we will reach 183,649 people on social media!

ONA wants to have at least 500 people signed up – can you help?

ONA/CFNU Student Scholarships - Deadline July 1, 2016

2016 ONA/CFNU Student Scholarship applications are now being accepted for one (1) CFNU Scholarship and ten (10) ONAscholarships to qualifying students.

Please note that, to be eligible, applicants must:
- be an immediate family member of an ONA member with entitlements (see Policy 3.9 attached);
- be a first-time nursing student enrolled in an accredited Ontario nursing education program; (not necessarily first year FYI);
- be an Ontario resident.

Applications, together with an essay of 300 words maximum must be received by July 1, 2016.
 

Local 8 Nurses Week Awards

 

Local 8 is now accepting nominations for the Local 8 Nurse of the Year 2016 award as well as applications for The Lori Dupont Education Bursary.

Nomination and application forms are available from your bargaining unit president.

Don’t delay! The deadline to submit your forms and nominations are May 1, 2016.

Winners will be announced at the ONA Local 8 Nurses Week Dinner on May 12th.