nursing

Friday May 19, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 19, 2023

Nursing Agencies: Profits Over Patients

March 1, 2023

Nursing agencies are taking advantage of the nursing shortage, driving up profits while pushing publicly-funded organizations towards bankruptcy. This predatory behavior harms our health care system and must be addressed.

Nursing agencies were meant to address short-term staffing shortages, not fill chronic, province-wide, full-time nursing staff gaps. Reliance on these agencies is unsustainable and leaves rural hospitals and long-term care homes with limited options and soaring costs.

The recent closure of the emergency department in Minden, Ontario, due to staff shortages, highlights the community-wide impact. Nursing agencies thrive due to lack of regulation, charging exorbitant rates up to $300 per hour, while public hospitals are restricted from offering incentives.

News: Staffing woes in Ontario’s health system drive growth in patient complaints  

January 21, 2023

This creates conflict among colleagues, as agency nurses earn more while permanent staff train them and supervise their work. The toxic environment drives nurses away, hindering the profession and discouraging new talent.

Instead of relying on agencies, we should focus on training more nurses within Canada and supporting countries in need. Expanding nursing student seats and fostering partnerships between universities and rural hospitals will attract and retain nurses in underserved areas.

We must establish government oversight, including licensing and cost restrictions for nursing agencies, to protect nurses and ensure affordable, high-quality health care.

It’s time to prioritize the stability of our nursing workforce and build a more equitable health care system for all. (AI)

 

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 3, 2022

‘People are suffering’: ICU nurse says staffing shortages at hospitals are getting worse

September 15, 2021

Nearly two-and-a-half years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one front-line nurse says emergency rooms are stretched thin amid constant staffing shortages.

“Things are worse now. And I don’t think the general public understands how difficult it is to be a patient or a nurse right now,” Birgit Umaigba, an intensive care unit nurse based in Toronto, told CTV News Channel on Monday.

Several hospitals across Ontario announced this weekend they’d be closing temporarily closing or reducing services in their emergency rooms and ICUs due to the ongoing staffing crunch.

Tuesday December 15, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 15, 2020

Seniors, long-term care workers should be first in line for COVID-19 vaccine, committee says

The independent committee charged with deciding who should be the first Canadians to be vaccinated against COVID-19 today released its final directive recommending that long-term care home residents and seniors over the age of 80 get priority access to shots.

May 27, 2020

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) said the initial, limited quantity of vaccine doses should be reserved for people who are most at risk of contracting the virus and developing severe symptoms.

While the federal government is procuring the vaccines and consulting with bodies like NACI to help coordinate distribution based on need, it will be up to the individual provinces and territories to decide who gets vaccinated when.

Canada’s long-term care homes have been hit hard by the novel coronavirus, with thousands of deaths reported since the onset of this pandemic.

NACI said that since the elderly residents of long-term care and assisted living facilities, retirement homes and chronic care hospitals face “severe outcomes” and a much greater chance of dying from the disease, they should be at the top of the list for the initial batch of roughly six million doses that will be made available in Canada in the first three months of 2021.

April 1, 2020

Pfizer’s vaccine, which is expected to be the first product approved by regulators for use in Canada, requires two doses — so roughly three million people should be inoculated in this first stage of the rollout.

NACI said it’s not just the residents who should go first — it’s also recommending that provinces and territories prioritize the staff who work at these sites for early vaccination.

After long-term care home residents and staff are immunized, NACI said the next priority group should be all Canadians over the age of 80.

“All adults of advanced age should be prioritized for initial doses of authorized COVID-19 vaccines, beginning with adults 80 years of age and older, then decreasing the age limit in 5-year increments to age 70 years as supply becomes available,” the final directive reads.

June 9, 2020

After the 80-plus cohort is vaccinated, front line health care workers should be next in the queue, said NACI.

The committee said that doctors, nurses and other staff at hospitals should get their shots early to maintain staffing levels in the health care system.

“Immunizing health care workers and other workers functioning in a health care capacity (e.g. personal support workers) minimizes the disproportionate burden of those taking on additional risks to protect the public, thereby upholding the ethical principle of reciprocity,” the directive reads.

June 3, 2015

NACI also expressed concern about Indigenous adults living in communities “where infection can have disproportionate consequences, such as those living in remote or isolated areas.”

Because health care options are limited at the best of times in these remote areas,

Pandemic Times

Indigenous individuals can face an elevated risk of death and “societal disruption,” NACI said. For that reason, the committee said that some First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities should be in the first cohort to get vaccinated.

These four groups — long-term care residents and staff, the elderly, front line health care workers and some Indigenous adults — are expected to consume all of the six million doses to be delivered in the first three months of 2021.

“As a ballpark, these four groups of people, as things are rolled out, should be covered by the initial doses,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer. (CBC News) 

 

Wednesday June 17, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 17, 2020

Rosslyn residence was literally a house of horrors

The story of the Rosslyn Retirement Residence, as reported by Spectator journalist Steve Buist, is by turns sickening, heartbreaking and infuriating.

May 27, 2020

It is also, in a way, indicative of what is wrong with Ontario’s long-term-care system. But it is so egregious, so extreme, that it is in a class by itself. Buist’s series was entitled House of Horrors, and that’s not an overstatement, at least not for victims and their families.

Yes, victims is the right word. Rosslyn residents were subjected to chronic bedbug infestations. Photos showing the result of those infestations will make your stomach turn. Medication was often not administered properly. Residents wandered in unsafe conditions. There were mouse droppings and black mould in food storage areas.

Management and ownership of Rosslyn received repeated notices, from public health and the provincial oversight agency, and warnings about health and safety infractions. And these infractions were not all new and related to pandemic staffing. Between 2018 and 2020 public health inspections found bed bugs, mice and cleaning issues. According to former staff members, operators of the home portrayed it to residents’ families as having a “secure memory unit” that didn’t actually exist.

There’s more. You could fill this space three times over just with the disturbing findings and stories uncovered by Spectator reporting. Fourteen residents of the Rosslyn have died from COVID-19, 22 staff members became infected and more than 60 residents were hospitalized by the time the pandemic eventually emptied the facility last month.

Now let’s add insult to injury. The owners of this facility, and seven other retirement homes and residential care facilities in the Hamilton area, are no strangers to the business. The Martino family owned the Royal Crest Lifecare chain, which collapsed in bankruptcy in 2003. They cried poor at the time but were found to have access to four homes, five SUVs, three Mercedes, a Hummer and a 42-foot cabin cruiser. When the dust settled on the commercial and business bankruptcies, nearly $200 million in liabilities were left, and $18 million left owing to taxpayers.

April 1, 2020

And now, the questions. How was it that the Martino family was able to continue in the business of running retirement homes so easily given its terrible track record? Why would they be given a licence by the provincial oversight agency, the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA)?

In the past 18 months, the city’s bylaw enforcement department has registered 28 violations of property standards against the Martinos’ care homes in Hamilton. There is a litany of horror stories from former staff and families of former residents RHRA. Why did it take so long to act? The RHRA revoked the Rosslyn’s licence this week, but what took so long?

Then there’s the oversight agency itself. The RHRA is essentially a self-governing industry body charged with enforcing the provincial Retirement Homes Act. Given everything we now know about LTC in general and Rosslyn specifically, why should we trust an industry body to oversee the sector?

Last but not least is the prospect of criminal charges. Provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has asked Hamilton police to conduct a complete investigation. Good for Horwath, but why didn’t the government do that first?

If an investigation finds the Rosslyn horror story involves criminal behaviour, charges must be laid and those responsible must be prosecuted. The Rosslyn travesty and others like it should be rallying cries in the call for complete reform of long-term care. Rosslyn’s victims deserve nothing less. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)