Tonight ONA Local 8 hosted a Night with the Nurses. Registered nurses and nurse practitioners had an open and honest discussion with Lisa Gretzky and Percy Hatfield, local NDP MPPs about the cuts to health care and the real danger this poses to patients. Highlighted was the drastic RN hours lost at WRH with the reduction of over 170 RN positions.
The Local also presented Lisa Gretzky and Percy Hatfield with over 7800 petitions calling for the end to the RN cuts and restore funding to our health care system. Our petitions will be read into legislation May 9th at Queens' Park.
Members who want to attend can Get On The Bus To Queens Park by clicking this link!
Published on: April 25, 2016 | Last Updated: April 25, 2016 9:22 AM EDT
Nurse Julie Prince in Igoma, Tanzania, on September 2012 while on a medical mission with World Partners Canada.
Late in 2014, Julie Prince’s life started to unravel.
After a shift at the hospital where she worked as a nurse in the
labour and delivery unit, she would spend hours sobbing on the couch,
haunted by images of dead babies.
Prince had worked as a nurse since 2002 in neonatal intensive units
in seven hospitals in the United States and Ontario, and later in a
labour and delivery unit in southwestern Ontario. Only a dozen years
into a career she loved, she felt oppressed by the accumulation of death
she had witnessed.
“I’ve always loved babies. But going into it, I didn’t realize how sad it would be,” she said.
Julie Prince in Leogane, Haiti, in March 2010 after a devastating earthquake.
By the end of the year, Prince could not even drive past the
hospital. She was diagnosed with depression and elements of PTSD a few
months later.
Earlier this month, Ontario passed a bill that recognizes PTSD as an
occupational illness for Ontario first responders, covering police,
paramedics, corrections workers, dispatchers and First Nations emergency
response teams.
That adds up to about 73,000 workers.
Who it doesn’t include are the province’s nurses, unlike similar legislation in Manitoba.
Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario,
says there are about 140,000 nurses in this province, and they deserve
to be covered.
Nurses are exposed not only to the trauma of what they witness, but also
to the violence of patients, says Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered
Nurses’ Association of Ontario.Alex Urosevic, Toronto Sun
Nurses are exposed to the traumatic things they witness — suffering,
dying patients, massive bleeding, wounds caused by trauma, exposure to
horrific infectious diseases.
Grinspun says she was involved during the deadly SARS outbreak of
2003. “I know for a fact that two nurses never went back to work. But
the great majority continue to work. Very few just leave. Many are
living with chronic PTSD.”
Meanwhile, nurses are also punched, beaten, stabbed and verbally abused by patients.
The Ontario Hospital Association reported more
than 6,400 incidents of workplace violence in the province’s hospitals
in 2015, said Erna Bujna, a health and safety specialist with
the Ontario Nurses’ Association.
Earlier this month, a patient attacked a
female registered nurse at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in
Penetanguishene with two screwdrivers taken from a shop in the
vocational services area. The nurse suffered a stab wound to the back as
well as facial injuries. The nurse manager who tried to intervene
sustained puncture wounds and a broken nose, and two other staff members
were injured while trying to restrain the patient.
In Ottawa, a registered practical nurse was assaulted in September
2015 in The Royal’s recovery unit at its Carling Avenue campus. Few
details have been released, but the hospital said it conducted an
immediate debriefing and offered employee assistance to the workers.
Three workers at The Royal were beaten in a June 2012 by a male patient
being treated for schizophrenia.
And yet, nurses seeking Workers Safety and
Insurance Board benefits for PTSD must prove that their condition is
related to their workplace. “Nurses should not have to continually
relive these horrific and traumatic events to prove entitlement to WSIB
benefits,” Bujna told the province’s standing committee on social policy
last month.
Bujna believes there are two reasons why
nurses are not included in the province’s new PTSD bill. First, WSIB is
funded by employers. If hospitals have to pay more, it will end up
costing the province.
“In my opinion, the government is trying to
control the number of allowed WSIB claims so health care employers won’t
have to take responsibility for preventing the illnesses, and (it)
keeps their WSIB costs down.”
Second, nursing is a female-dominated
profession, and Bujna said she sees sexism in leaving nurses out. “There
is just greater attention on male-dominated workplaces.”
In response to an inquiry about why nurses are
not included in the legislation, Labour Minister Kevin Flynn’s
spokesman, Craig MacBride, said Flynn recently met with nurses on this
issue and last year created a Leadership Table on Violence in Healthcare
with Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Eric Hoskins.
Bill 163 is “intended to respond to the needs
of those who need it most – first responders, including nurses in
correctional facilities, who are at least twice as likely to suffer from
PTSD because of their work.”
MacBride said all Ontario workers are covered
for PTSD through the WSIB. “Bill 163 simply creates a more responsive
process for those who are most likely to face traumatic experiences on a
regular basis.”
But nurses are asking: If they’re not first responders who face traumatic experiences, then who is?
“There is no question our nurses are also
first responders, and in our female-dominated health-care workplaces
they experience and witness as much — if not more — traumatic events
than the men in the male-dominated workplaces that were covered by this
law,” Bujna said.
Nurses are with their patients for 12 hours at
a time, especially in ICU settings and sometimes childbirth, Prince
said. It leads to a whole other level of bonding and exposure than other
first responders, she says.
When Prince heard the nurses were being excluded from the legislation, she wrote a blog that told the poignant story of her descent into crippling depression and anxiety.
She had worked in neonatal intensive units,
not only with premature babies weighing only a pound or two, but fragile
newborns born with genetic syndromes. Prince came to see her role as
going through a journey with these families, building a relationship
with the people who were in her unit for as long as eight months.
Julie Prince holding the hand of a baby born at 24 weeks gestation. The
little girl, who survived, “just keeps on fighting,” says Prince.
Many babies did not survive. Prince collected mementos for the
parents, tiny footprints, boxes containing the baby’s quilt, a tiny knit
hat.
“It is a privilege to walk with people through death,” she said.
When a baby is withdrawn from life support, it’s the nurse who hands
over the baby to the parents to be held for the last time, Prince said.
It’s the nurse who takes the baby back from the parents and brings the
baby to the morgue and lays its body wrapped in blankets on a cold metal
shelf. Sometimes, the family decides not to be there when a baby
is taken off life-support.
And while people associate the maternity ward with happy moments,
Prince found that working in labour and delivery brought “a whole other
level of intensity and stress.” There were miscarriages and difficult
births. She coached women to deliver babies that had died in utero.
“I want people to recognize what nurses do on a daily basis and the
repeated traumas and sorrow that they are exposed to,” said Prince. “I
want the government to acknowledge that the risk of trauma exposure and
PTSD is clearly there, and when nurses do need the assistance, for it to
be available.”
Prince could feel herself getting burned out. By mid-December 2014,
she said, she was plagued by overwhelming grief and anxiety. “I didn’t
want to take care of anyone anymore.”
PTSD was never mentioned as a risk for nurses while she was in
nursing school. Debriefing has been studied as a valuable tool to help
defuse stress. Fellow nurses know when a colleague has had traumatic or
sorrowful day. But “there is literally no time to debrief,” Prince said.
“Somehow we have to establish a culture among nurses that encourages
this and that makes room for this. We need administration in hospitals
to recognize what their nurses face on a daily basis. We need them to
prioritize the mental health of their own.”
Prince doesn’t regret a moment of her nursing career. “Every loss has been a deep, deep privilege.”
She now works with a Community Care Access Centre as a nursing care
co-ordinator. Her PTSD treatment has been successful, but it was hard
work, she said. Part of that was the “exposure therapy” of returning to
the hospital. I took her more than a year to return to the childbirth
unit to hand in her badge.
“My colleagues had no clue,” she said.
Published on: April 24, 2016 | Last Updated: April 24, 2016 4:17 PM EDT
Dr. John Bradford says it's "madness" to separate nurses from other first responders.
It makes “absolutely no sense” to exclude nurses from Ontario’s
new PTSD legislation, says renowned forensic psychiatrist Dr. John
Bradford.
Paramedics are covered under the proposed bill, as are police
officers, firefighters, workers in correctional institutions and
dispatchers.
Bradford, who wrote a letter to the province in support of the
Ontario Nurses’ Association, argues that a paramedic who goes to the
scene, stabilizes a patient and prepares the patient for transport is
under the same kind of stress as the emergency room nurse who receives
the patient.
“To split first responders and nurses is madness,” Bradford said this
week from his office at the Brockville Mental Health Centre.
In forensic psychiatry, staff always must be aware of the potential
for violence — “Code White” is hospital-talk for physical violence
against a member of the staff.
There is also the anxiety of protecting the public from patients who
have been released into the community. The risk level creates anxiety
and stress, said Bradford.
“We manage risk day in, day out. No matter how safe we try to be, we
work with difficult and dangerous people. The team I work with knows the
risks and odds.”
A female patient stabbed a nurse in the neck with a pen at the Brockville Mental Health Centre in October 2014.
“If that happened to you or me, there’s a good chance we would develop PTSD,” Bradford said.
But he argues that nurses who work in mental health aren’t the only
ones who are vulnerable — those who work in general hospitals,
especially emergency departments “have many of the same experiences as
first responders.”
Bradford has seen both sides of PTSD. In 2013, he went public about seeking treatment for his own PTSD diagnosis.
As a respected forensic psychiatrist, Bradford had sat across from
infamous killers including Paul Bernardo and Robert “Willie” Pickton,
and reviewed graphic evidence of crimes. But he has described how he
broke down after he saw video evidence of Canadian Air Force colonel
Russell Williams assaulting two young women, knowing the video would end
in their deaths. All the evidence he had seen over the course of his
career rushed back at him, and he drove home weeping.
“Everyone we see has done horrible things. We try to compartmentalize
that in our minds when we help patients therapeutically. But this kind
of compartmentalization can make you very vulnerable to PTSD,” Bradford
said.
By Ricardo Veneza April 25, 2016 5:54am
Officials with Windsor Regional Hospital say the incidents of violence against staff is trending in the wrong direction.
President and CEO David Musyj says more and more staff are reporting incidents of being abused on the job.
“We’re starting to see family members verbally being very aggressive
with staff members,” says Musyj. “That seems to be increasing a lot.”
Susan Sommerdyk with the Ontario Nurses’ Association at the hospital says staff suffer both verbal and physical abuse.
“Anything from being yelled at, threatened with lawsuits all the way
to being physically punched or kicked or hit or spit at or scratched,
it’s pretty well anything in between,” says Sommerdyk.
There were 144 workplace violence incidents recorded in 2015 which Sommerdyk says are grossly under reported by staff.
She says the first quarter of 2016 has seen 113 incidents reported,
already more than double the 55 incidents reported in the first part of
last year.
Sommerdyk says the long-standing issue has unfairly been seen as something that comes with part of the job of being a nurse.
“A lot of people you’ll actually still hear that coming from, but
we’re here to say that it’s not. No one should have to be fearful when
they go to work or worry about being harmed,” says Sommerdyk.
Musyj agrees.
“Being harassed or even assaulted by a patient or a family member,
that’s not part of their job,” says Musyj. “There’s no reason to be
verbally threatening to staff members. That’s not needed. That’s
uncalled for.”
Sommerdyk says strides are being made in encouraging staff to report
incidents and says Windsor Regional is working with ONA to deal with the
problem.
“Things are changing, but it’s slow,” says Sommerdyk. “Not all places embrace that or want to tackle that issue.”
Windsor Regional has a protocol in place to identify to staff
patients who have had abusive outbursts as one of its workplace safety
measures. The hospital is also working with Toronto East General
Hospital — seen as a leader in dealing with workplace violence — to
improve strategies dealing with the issue.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is looking to hear from you to improve public health services in our community.
To do so, they have launched a Community Needs Assessment survey.
The survey is the first step toward better understanding the
health-related needs and concerns of our community. Data collection
methods from the survey consist of: the community survey, focus groups,
key informant interviews, and available population health data. The
information gathered through the CNA process will be used to help better
meet the public health needs of our community.
Once the survey closes on May 16th, 2016, the Health Unit will
analyze the results, along with other information collected through
focus groups, key informant interviews, and existing data sources. A
summary of the survey findings will be made available to the public on
the Health Unit website upon completion, in the summer of 2016.
You can find the survey on their website at wechu.org.
Toronto – The data is
irrefutable. Ontario’s cuts to hospital nursing care and hospital beds are the
most severe of anywhere in Canada. In a new report Beyond Limits: Ontario’s
Deepening Hospital Cuts Crisis released today, the Ontario Health Coalition
finds that the cuts to community hospital care are a result of eight consecutive
years of global funding for the province’s hospitals. Now, heading into the
ninth year in a row of real-dollar cuts to hospitals’ global budgets, Ontario’s
community hospitals are now lagging behind virtually all other provinces in
every reasonable measure of hospital funding. The coalition’s report includes an
updated list tracking hospital service and staffing cuts in every region of the
province for the last four years. Among the key findings:
Ontario’s government
has cut hospitals’ global budgets in real-dollar terms for 8 years in a row. If
the government does not change course, 2016 -17 will be the ninth consecutive
year of hospital cuts – the longest period of hospital cuts in the history of
Ontario’s public hospitals.
Ontario now has the
least amount of nursing care per average patient (including RN and RPN
care).
Ontario has the fewest
hospital beds left of all provinces in Canada, and lags far below the other
provinces.
Ontario has the highest
hospital readmission rates in Canada, and they are rising.
By every reasonable
measure, Ontario’s hospital funding levels are at or near the bottom of the
country and far from the average of the other provinces.
Cuts are resulting a
crisis of overcrowding; cancelled surgeries because there are no beds; too-early
discharges; high re-admission rates; infections; violence; ambulance delays;
understaffing; and compromised safety for patients and staff alike.
“That people are
sleeping on stretchers in hallways in every major city in Ontario, sometimes for
days at a time, is a travesty. Small and rural hospitals are being eviscerated
despite all evidence regarding community need. The fact that staffing and
funding are being cut to unsafe levels without any reasonable benchmarks shows
just how far beyond any limits Ontario’s hospital cuts have gone,” said Natalie
Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “This issue should be
considered the serious crisis that it truly is, by our policy
makers.”
Student interns from
Ryerson University’s nursing program, Patricia Julian and Celine Yu helped to
research and compile the list of cuts. They expressed shock at what they found.
“Among the enormous cuts to hospitals in the largest cities of Ontario, what
stood out to me the most were the cuts to mental health services,” noted
Patricia Julian, citing cuts from Hamilton’s east end psychiatric clinic to
London Ontario where mental health patients have been sleeping on the emergency
department floor while waiting for hospital beds to open up. “These cuts are
devastating to an already vulnerable population.” “Northern and small
community’s hospitals have been victim to numerous cuts and even the risk of
closure,” reported Celine Yu. “These closures and cuts risk patients’ lives and
ultimately the health of entire communities.”
“Like every Ontarian,
we have been appalled at the money that is taken away from care in exorbitant
executive salaries, consultants, PR people and ballooning managements,” noted
Ms. Mehra. “But even taking this into account, Ontario’s government still funds
our communities’ hospitals at a lower rate by every measure than other provinces
and has cut care levels beyond any comparable jurisdiction. This underlines the
facts that our government can and should choose to restore services and funding,
and to ensure that funding goes to actual care and vital support services that
patients rely upon.”
Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for
the Premier. While this government has been busy attending secret $6,000
fundraising dinners, I’ve been touring hospitals and meeting with front-line
workers across this province. Just this past weekend, I was in Windsor. I was
told first-hand—
Interjections.
The Speaker
(Hon. Dave Levac): I expect some civility here, and I’ll get it one way
or another.
Finish, please.
Mr. Patrick
Brown: I was told first-hand the impact of this government’s
mismanagement on health care in Windsor: 120 nurses are gone because of this
government, and $20 million cut to Windsor Regional because of this
government. The budget promised one thing, but what we’re seeing in
reality is very, very different.
I can tell you: I didn’t charge a
single red cent to meet with nurses in Windsor. I wanted to hear their concerns;
I wanted to hear their stories.
My question for the Premier: Will the Premier meet with the nurses
in Windsor without charging them $6,000 a plate?
Interjections.
The
Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Thank you.
Premier?
Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I think that
the Leader of the Opposition is fully aware that I meet with people all over the
province—consistently, Mr. Speaker—from every sector.
We’re committed, on health care, to
making sure that people in Ontario have the right care, that they have it in a
timely way and that they have it in the right place. To that end, funding for
Windsor hospitals has increased by $124 million. That’s a 47% increase during
our tenure as government. In fact, just this fiscal year, $7 million was
provided to help Windsor Regional Hospital with budget pressures and to help the
transition process from a registered-nurse model to a registered-practical-nurse
model.
That is work that is going on in other
parts of the province.The
focus of those funds was to ensure that the reduction of FTEs occurred through
attrition and retirement and not through layoffs. So it’s a different
model. There is a transition. There is, overall in health care, a transition
going on. We are working with the health care sector in every community across
the province.
The
Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.
Mr.
Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: Those are talking points to justify a
$20-million cut to Windsor Regional Hospital. But I can tell you, it’s not just
Windsor. Last month, St. Joseph’s health centre in London was forced to
cut 49 full-time positions and 12 transitional care beds. Just last month,
LifeLabs announced they were closing 15 patient service centres. The CEO of
LifeLabs said they had to close the centres because the demand for testing had
increased but funding had not.
Patients will struggle to get the
testing they need done. The government has created this situation, forcing
communities to close clinics and doctors’ offices; they have fired nurses and
front-line health care workers.
So my question is: Now that the
Premier has demanded that the Minister of Health not have private, high-level
fundraising dinners, will he now
have the time to support physicians and nurses and stop closing labs?
Hon.
Kathleen O. Wynne: Once again, let me just reinforce that the way we
make policy decisions on this side of the House has nothing to do with political
donations, even though the innuendo on the other side of the House would suggest
that. It’s simply false.
Interjections.
The
Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Finish, please.
Hon.
Kathleen O. Wynne: What the Leader of the Opposition does not talk
about is the rehiring of nurses. He doesn’t talk about what’s happening in one
part of the sector. We’ve
increased the percentage of nurses working full-time by 13.9% in our term of
government—since 2003. There are now 26,300 more nurses working in nursing in
Ontario since we took office. There has been a massive influx of nurses into the
system, and we are working with communities around the province to make sure
that service is delivered adequately.
The
Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Final supplementary.
Mr.
Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: Once again, if the Premier wasn’t
petrified of a public inquiry, she would welcome this sunshine, this spotlight,
on this topic.
We all know that doctors have been
without a contract for two years. During that time, Liberals have unilaterally
cut $815 million from physicians. Further, the Minister of Health won’t even
meet with physicians. So my question is: Is it because the doctors didn’t ante
up for the Liberal fundraising calls? How many $6,000 dinners will it take for
the Premier and the Minister of Health to actually meet with our physicians in
the province of Ontario?
Interjections.
The
Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Thank you.
Premier?
Hon.
Kathleen O. Wynne: The Minister of Health is very much engaged with the
OMA. We would like very much to have an opportunity to sit down at the table and
work out an arrangement with them.
The Leader of the Opposition may not
remember, but this is the highest-paid group of physicians in the country. They
have every right to earn a good wage, but the reality is that we need that
opportunity to sit down with them. We’re open to that. We want to work this out,
and the Minister of Health is engaged with them on a regular basis to try to get
that opportunity to have the conversation with them.
Hospital funding
Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: My question
is to the Premier. Hospitals in London are grappling with another year of deep
cuts under this Liberal government. In the past two weeks, we’ve learned that
St. Joseph’s and London Health
Sciences are both cutting the equivalent of 60 full-time positions. Budgets for
supplies are being cut, and 12 crucial transitional care beds will be shut down
this October.
People in my community want to know:
Why is this Premier forcing hospitals in London to cut patient care, lay off
front-line staff and shut down even more beds?
Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know that
the member opposite, when she is in conversation with constituents, will remind the constituents that the budget
actually puts $1 billion more into health care in this province, including $345
million for hospital funding.
In terms of the number of nurses in
this province, in terms of the number of doctors, there have been thousands more
nurses and doctors in this province in our term of government: 26,300 more
nurses in this province as a result of our policies.
We will continue to support the
health care system. We will continue to work with individual health care systems
and hospitals around the province, including in London, and make sure that
people get the health care that they need in a timely manner.
The
Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?
Ms. Teresa
J. Armstrong: When I’m speaking to constituents, they’re reminding me
about the health care policies that this Liberal government is causing to fail
the services in health care.
Again to the Premier: Hospitals in London have revealed just
how deeply this Liberal government is cutting health care. St. Joseph’s has seen
effectively a $36.5-million cut to its total budget over the past four years.
London Health Sciences says that the year 2016-17 marks the fifth straight year
that funding will not keep up with rising costs. And we all know who pays
the price for these cuts. It’s patients who wait longer for care they need; it’s
families who are forced to deal with more worry and more stress; and it’s the
front-line health care workers who don’t deserve a pink slip from this
government.
How can this Premier once again slash
funding to hospitals in London and expect patient health care not to suffer?
Hon.
Kathleen O. Wynne: We recognized in this budget that there was a need
to increase funding to hospitals. That’s why there’s a $345-million increase to
hospitals in the province.
I had talked with CEOs of hospitals.
The Minister of Health and Long-Term Care had talked with hospital CEOs. We
understood that there needed to be an increase. That’s why there’s $1 billion more in
health care overall and $345 million for hospitals.
St. Joseph’s Healthcare—that’s the
Hamilton St. Joseph’s Healthcare—system received $395 million in 2015-16 in base
funding, and that’s a 48% increase since 2003. So over that period of time, a
48% increase, and that’s just one hospital across the province. There have been
increases, and $345 million in this year’s budget.
"You're a nurse?" that's cool, I wanted to do that when I was a kid. How
much do you make?" The nurse replied: "HOW MUCH DO I MAKE?" ... I can
make holding your hand seem like the most important thing in the world
when you're scared... I can make your child breathe when they stop...I
can help your father survive a heart attack...I can make myself get up
at 5AM to make sure your mother has the medicine she needs to live...I
work all day to save the lives of strangers...I make my family wait for
dinner until I know your family member is taken care of...I make myself
skip lunch so that I can make sure that everything I did for your wife
today is charted...I make myself work weekends and holidays because
people don't just get sick Monday - Friday. Today, I might save your
life. How much do I make? All I know is, I make a difference. Repost not
only if you are a nurse or you love a nurse, but most importantly,
repost this if you respect them!!
Spring is here – and so is the season to nominate an extraordinary nurse to be recognized during National Nursing Week May 9-13!
There are two categories to nominate an outstanding nurse, as well as a bursary available to nurses for further education. To nominate a nurse for an award or to apply for the bursary, please go to the Nursing Week home page, found on the WRH Intranet under the Programs and Services Directory. THE DAISY AWARDS The DAISY Awards recognize nurses for remarkable patient experience. These nurses consistently demonstrate excellence through their clinical expertise and extraordi-nary compassionate care, and they are recognized as outstanding role models in our nursing community. Deadline for submission is April 29. http://www.wrh.on.ca/Site_Published/wrh_internet/RichText.aspx?Body.QueryId.Id=56233&LeftNav.QueryId.Categories=779
JEANNE MANCE NURSING EXCELLENCE AWARD Nomination forms are also now online for the Jeanne Mance Nursing Excellence Award, which recognizes RNs and RPNs who continually go above and beyond to provide compassionate and professional care to his/her patients, and exemplifies teamwork, compassion, stewardship and respect. Nominations are open until April 29th. If you have someone in mind you would like to nominate, please visit the following link: http://www.wrh.on.ca/Site_Published/wrh_internet/OnlineFormsnonav.aspx?Body.Id=56431 LORI DUPONT BURSARY Also, RNs who are taking or considering education courses are also encouraged to submit an application for The Lori Dupont Bursary. This is a $5,000.00 bursary funded by Windsor Regional Hospital and Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare to assist RN staff with continuing education costs. All ONA staff members who are planning to at-tend education courses, conferences and workshops or who are working toward certification in 2016, are invited to submit a bursary application by April 29th. Each successful candidate will be awarded up to $1,000. http://www.wrh.on.ca/Site_Published/wrh_internet/RichText.aspx?Body.QueryId.Id=71326&LeftNav.QueryId.Categories=810
The awards and bursaries will be handed out at a joint celebration with Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare at Met campus during Nurses Week, which runs May 9-13.
http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/healthcare-cuts-are-unacceptable-says-ontario-conservative-leader-patrick-brown Sharon Hill, Windsor Star
Published on: April 9, 2016 | Last Updated: April 10, 2016 5:54 PM EDT
Health cuts, such as chopping the number of registered nurses in
hospitals, are unacceptable and will hurt local health care, Ontario
Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said Saturday in Windsor.
“The reality is they are cutting $20 million from a hospital that
can’t afford any more cuts and to say that you can find $20 million in
efficiencies is political talk. It’s spin. They are gutting $20 million
from a hospital that can’t afford it,” Brown said Saturday after meeting
at a downtown hotel with a handful of representatives from the Windsor
chapter of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario.
Association representatives met with Brown and Chatham-Kent-Essex MPP
Rick Nicholls Saturday afternoon. Windsor Regional Hospital announced
in January
it was cutting about 120 nurses and replacing 80 registered nurses with
registered practical nurses as it tried to deal with a $20-million
budget shortfall. Last week the budget shortfall was expected to be about $17 million for
2015-16 and was blamed on losing about $20 million in operational
funding from the Ministry of Health over the last few years.
“I want to push back on behalf of the people of Windsor to say that
(Ontario Premier) Kathleen Wynne’s health cuts are unacceptable,” Brown
told reporters. “She never campaigned two years ago on cutting hospitals
and cutting nurses and taking money out of patient care with
physicians.”
Ontario Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, right, is joined by
Chatham-Kent Essex MPP Rick Nicholls and representatives of the
Windsor-Essex chapter of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario at
the Best Western in downtown Windsor, Saturday, April 9, 2016.Dax Melmer /
Windsor Star
The 120 positions lost at Windsor Regional Hospital are a red flag,
he said. The cuts are short-sighted and will end up costing the
health-care system more down the road, he said.
“There’s going to be diminishment of health care here.”
Dana Boyd, president of the Windsor Essex chapter of the Registered
Nurses’ Association of Ontario, said the association has asked for a
moratorium across the province to stop registered nurses from being
replaced with registered practical nurses who have less training. An
online petition at the association’s website (rnao.ca) has collected about 14,000 signatures, she said.
“We want decisions based on the patient. We don’t want decisions based on a budget,” Boyd said.
Registered nurses complete four years of university and many have a
master’s degree, she said. Registered practical nurses have a two-year
college diploma and are expected to take care of people who are stable.
The problem the association sees is that patients in hospitals often
have complex health issues and need to be cared for by an RN. If
patients are stable enough to be cared for by an RPN, they are often
discharged from the hospital.
Boyd said there are places for registered nurses, registered
practical nurses and nurse practitioners in the system, but there needs
to be a plan that puts patients first.
Brown said he’s tired of the Liberal government’s Band-Aid solutions.
“I’m tired of these shortcuts,” he said. “Whether it’s replacing RNs
with RPNs, whether it’s switching nurses from full-time to part-time,
whether it’s not using an operating room, not using MRI machines, I’m
sick and tired of short-term solutions that are damaging access to
health care that we cherish in Ontario.” shill@postmedia.com twitter.com/winstarhill
