Ontario

Wednesday August 31, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 31, 2022

Western University mandating COVID-19 booster shots, masking ahead of fall term

Western University is implementing vaccine and masking requirements this September for students, faculty, staff and some visitors. 

October 21, 2020

The London, Ont., university is requiring those returning to campus to be vaccinated for COVID-19 twice with an additional booster. There is also a mask mandate in place in classrooms and seminar rooms for the first five weeks of class followed by a reassessment. 

 “Considering that the general population is at 50 per cent in terms of their booster shot, we think it’s not too much of an effort to get where we want to get,” said Florentine Strzelczyk, provost and vice-president (academic). 

The policy takes effect as of Monday, however the campus community has until October 1 to submit current proof of vaccination to the university.

Saturday August 27, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 27, 2022

Not the new and improved Doug Ford …

August 19, 2022

At minimum, the provincial government has a massive optics and communication problem around its new initiative to try and free up badly needed acute care beds.

By now we all know the health-care crisis is real. And a significant part of the situation is a result of people who need alternate levels of care occupying acute care beds. Give Doug Ford and friends credit for finally trying to do something about it.

But is what they’re doing the right thing?

January 27, 2021

New legislation would allow hospital patients to be transferred to a temporary long-term care home without their consent while they await a bed in their preferred facility. The interim LTC facility would not necessarily be in their community. The law will not physically force patients to move, but it’s not at all clear what will happen if they don’t.

LTC Minister Paul Calandra says people should “absolutely” be charged a fee if they won’t move, but he won’t say how much. It could be $62 per day, or it could be much more. How much more? How far away might people be moved? The government either doesn’t know or isn’t saying, and it is not allowing debate or public input into the new law. This is not the new and consultation-friendly Doug Ford people thought they were voting for. (Hamilton Spectator editorial) 

 

Wednesday August 24, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 24, 2022

So, four premiers go into a bar …

October 29, 2019

Something sadly predictable happens whenever a group of premiers gets together to talk, in particular about health care. We have to do better, a Team Canada approach, equal partners blah, blah, blah. And oh, by the way give us money, Ottawa. Loads more money. But don’t attach any strings, because that would intrude on provincial jurisdiction, which health care is.

All this happened this week when Maritime premiers and Doug Ford got together in New Brunswick. Ford said: “We look forward to having a collaborative relationship with the federal government … This is a Team Canada approach that we need to take.”

“The delivery of health care in P.E.I. and across the country is going to be fundamentally different than it used to be,” said the island province’s premier Dennis King.

Saturday August 20, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 20, 2022

Ambulance use in Ontario has grown far faster than population, study finds

A new study finds ambulance use in Ontario increased significantly in the years leading up to the pandemic, outpacing the growth in both population and hospital emergency room visits by other means. 

September 15, 2021

The study was led by researchers at Hamilton’s McMaster University and it looked at the yearly numbers of patients transported by ambulance paramedics to hospital emergency rooms across Ontario from 2010 to 2019. 

It found a 38.3 per cent increase in the number of ambulance patient transports to ERs over the decade, an increase four times larger than the province’s 9.6 per cent population growth over the same period. 

“What our work points to is that this current model of [emergency department] transports is likely unsustainable for the province,” said Ryan Strum, the lead researcher for the paper and a PhD student at McMaster who also works as a paramedic.

Friday August 19, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 19, 2022

Ontario to fund more private clinic surgeries, send patients to temporary LTCs to ease health-care pressures

August 3, 2022

Ontario is hoping to ease health-care pressures by increasing publicly covered surgeries at private clinics, waiving the exam and registration fees for internationally trained nurses, and sending patients waiting for a long-term care bed to a home not of their choosing.

On Thursday, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced a plan that aims to hire more health professionals, free up hospital beds and reduce surgical wait lists. The plan comes as nursing staff shortages have seen emergency departments across the province close throughout the summer for hours or days at a time.

On long-term care, the government plans to introduce legislation today that will allow patients awaiting a bed to be transferred to a “temporary” home while they await space in their preferred home. It’s also taking 300 beds that had been used for COVID-19 isolation and making them available for people on wait lists, and says there is a potential to do that with 1,000 more beds within six months.