New best practice guideline (BPG) edition on vascular access now available
In June, RNAO published the Vascular Access, Second Edition BPG. This latest edition provides nurses and interprofessional teams with evidence-based recommendations and resources related to the insertion, assessment and maintenance of vascular access devices in the infant, pediatric and adult populations. This BPG combines two previous BPGs: Assessment and Device Selection for Vascular Access (released in 2004) and Care and Maintenance to Reduce Vascular Access Complications (released in 2005). The BPG’s expert panel was led by co-chair Dr. Nancy Moureau, chief executive officer of PICC Excellence, and Darlene Murray, interprofessional education specialist at SickKids. The Canadian Vascular Access Association (CVAA) and the Infection Prevention Society (UK) have endorsed this guideline. “I’m so proud of our expert panel and RNAO staff – Amy Burt and Christine Buchanan (guideline development leads) and others – who made this BPG possible. It is so important that we continue to provide nurses and other health professionals with the most up-to-date evidence-based practice so they can improve patient health outcomes,” says RNAO CEO and founder of the BPG program, Dr. Doris Grinspun. Download Vascular Access, Second Edition on RNAO’s website.
RN launches new magazine highlighting sleep health
On June 4, RN and sleep expert Julia Worrall launched her own magazine focusing on the connection between poor sleep and poor health. Best Sleep Magazine’s first issue included stories about the way poor sleep harms our health, daytime napping, as well as stress and pain during sleep. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Worrall had attended events as a keynote speaker focusing on the need for more comprehensive sleep programs for first responders and the public. The pandemic has had a significant impact on people’s sleep patterns, she says. Worrall hopes to eventually have the publication available on newsstands. For now, it is available online and at select primary care providers. Read it at bestsleepmagazine.com (Wellington Advertiser, June 10)
RNAO CEO part of new provincial working group on long-term care staffing
RNAO CEO Dr. Doris Grinspun has been appointed by the government as a member of a new action group tasked with helping to implement health-care recruiting and training in Ontario. The Staffing Supply Accelerator Group will support the objectives of the Ontario government’s long-term care staffing plan. Grinspun joins leaders from other stakeholder groups, including the Ontario Long-Term Care Association, AdvantAge Ontario, and the Council of Ontario Universities. The group is tasked with accelerating and expanding the training and education of registered nurses (RN), registered practical nurses (RPN) and personal support workers (PSW). They will focus on four priorities in 2021 –2022: building a PSW learning pathway to include onsite training and micro-credentialing; bridging opportunities for PSWs to become RPNs and RPNs to become RNs; increasing enrolment and accelerating completion of existing training programs in support of long-term care; and removing barriers to enable more internationally trained professionals to become qualified to practice in Ontario. The group first met in March and will operate for at least one year. “The work has been intense, with several sub-groups forming,” says Grinspun. This is necessary if we are to strengthen health human resources – both regulated and unregulated – for the long-term care sector, she adds. “Our seniors deserve to have a good quality of life. To do this, there needs to be adequate staff to care for them,” she insists. Learn more about the Staffing Supply Accelerator Group here.
RNAO recognizes reporters, media outlets for outstanding coverage
Ottawa Citizen reporter Elizabeth Payne was one of the seven recipients to receive an RNAO Media Award this year. Her winning entry focused on a nursing home administrator, Carolyn Della Foresta, who works at Almonte Country Haven, just outside of Ottawa. She explored the sorrow and trauma felt by staff when nearly one-third of the home’s population died during one of the province’s first and deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the spring of 2020. RNAO President Morgan Hoffarth was joined by RNAO CEO Dr. Doris Grinspun for the awards presentation and highlighted the important role journalists have had during the pandemic: “Just like the work of nurses, the work of the media has been intense and challenging: covering the pandemic from different viewpoints and shedding light on what needs urgent action. RNAO values the work of all journalists keeping Ontarians informed and engaged,” says Hoffarth. You can read the bios for all of this year’s Media Award winners here. (Ottawa Citizen, June 16)
Letter to the editor
Sudbury RN and member Maria Casas writes about the importance of Nursing Week in a letter to the Timmins Daily Press (May 10).
In 1971, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) designated May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday, as International Nurses Day. In 1985, in recognition of the dedication and achievements of the nursing profession, the Canadian minister of health proclaimed the second week of May as National Nursing Week in Canada.
Nightingale is best known around the world as the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who nursed British soldiers during the Crimean War and turned nursing into a profession. But she was also much more than that. She was an activist, social theorist and author whose advocacy to improve health and sanitation for British Army soldiers, and writings on hospital planning and organization, laid the foundation for nursing’s emphasis on social determinants of health today. Nightingale published more than 200 books, reports and pamphlets.
It is important to highlight the significant impact nurses have in all areas during this particularly demanding time in history.
- Public health nurses are overseeing the tracing of COVID-19 contacts to alert those at risk and minimize disease spread.
- Nurses in long-term care are managing ever-changing directives in regards to screening and cohorting of residents to keep them safe.
- Acute care nurses are providing supportive care to those infected to reduce complications, while keeping infections from spreading.
- Nurses in the community are assisting with the rollout of vaccines and helping those COVID-19 patients who are ill, but not in need of hospitalization.
These represent just a few examples of the contributions nurses are making to the fight against COVID-19, above and beyond their usual professional responsibilities.
RNAO’s Sudbury & District Chapter acknowledges the influence of all nurses and thanks them, and their care partners, for the important work they do. Nursing Week gives nurses across the world the chance to celebrate and to keep Nightingale’s work alive by keeping Ontarians healthy, and caring for them when they’re ill.
Hamilton-area hospitals set bar on self-isolation pay
Ontario hospitals in Hamilton, Niagara, Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk counties are providing staff with pay if they need to self-isolate due to potential contact with a COVID-19 patient. This is a move that RNAO actively pushed for. “It was never right to put the burden of sick time or isolation time on the backs of nurses that are putting themselves on the line,” says CEO Dr. Doris Grinspun. This much-needed compensation will help control the transmission of COVID-19 and protect staff and patients, she adds. The policy change comes after RNAO’s strong advocacy for compensation, and following a letter from an emergency physician group at Hamilton Health Sciences, which wrote to the minister of health about its “deep concern” that nurses weren’t being paid during self isolation. (CBC News, Feb. 17)
NAN Hope program addresses Indigenous mental health during COVID-19
The Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Hope program began in August 2020 to help provide culturally-appropriate mental health support to all NAN citizens. The number of active clients in the program is 317 (as of March 3), and continues to increase each week. Nurse practitioner and NAN COVID-19 Task Team Chair Mae Katt says the pandemic has affected the community in a variety of ways. “The NAN COVID-19 task team works with the nation leadership to protect the communities from the impacts of COVID-19. We do know the impacts are affecting many parts of the community.” According to a Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) survey conducted in December 2020, 54 per cent of Indigenous people have experienced deteriorating mental health during the second wave of COVID-19. This is up from 41 per cent during the first wave. (Toronto Star, Jan. 21)
No place for racism in nursing or anywhere
Keisha Jefferies, a PhD candidate in the school of nursing at Dalhousie University, says racism is embedded in nursing education. Jefferies says cases studies in curriculum content often present Indigenous patients as struggling with alcohol dependency and refer to Black people as often having poor dental hygiene. “You’re attaching a lot of these assumptions to groups.” Racism in nursing curriculum is an issue RNAO has recognized and wants to eliminate. The association’s Black Nurses Task Force (BNTF), which was launched in June 2020, is tackling this and other issues of discrimination in the profession (read more about the BNTF in our Fall 2020 issue). The task force is co-chaired by RNAO Immediate Past-President Dr. Angela Cooper Brathwaite and nurse practitioner (NP) Corsita Garraway. Cooper Brathwaite says, “Racism is a learned behaviour. If people are open and willing to listen and understand where other people are coming from, [then] they too… would be allies of people of colour.” (University Affairs, Jan. 15)
Windsor ICU staff exhausted as second wave takes hold
Staff are beginning to feel exhaustion as they continue to fight COVID-19 at Windsor Regional Hospital. Many COVID-19 patients in the ICU are on ventilators. The medical director of the ICU says that despite their best efforts, 40 per cent of these patients who need a ventilator in Windsor-Essex die. RN Karen Riddell, vice-president of critical care at the hospital says that her and her team need to prepare for more people with COIVD-19 need ICU care. “We’re preparing to be at a critical level. We’re trying to avoid getting to chaos but we’re very busy, we’re very worried about what’s to come,” says Riddell. Staff in the ICU continue the difficult work caring for vulnerable COVID-19 patients while hoping for an end to the pandemic. (CBC News, Jan. 20)
Trenton NP first to receive most-responsible-provider designation
Johanna Leonhardt is the first NP at Quinte Health Care (QHC) to fill the role of 'most-responsible-provider' (MRP), a designation that means she is able to practise to her full scope (read more about RNAO’s NP Task Force report on scope of practice in this issue). In fact, she’s one of only a few NPs across the province that has the title. Leonhardt works in the regional complex continuing care unit at Trenton Memorial Hospital. “It’s pretty exciting,” she says of the new designation. “I have been really well-received here, not only by the patients themselves, but by all of the staff, including the physicians. I’m very thankful that I have a lot of support around me.” QHC’s chief nursing officer and vice-president Carol Smith Romeril says she is delighted by the change: “This has been a goal for almost my entire career.” Leonhardt is happy to be able to provide more for her patients. Allowing NPs “…to work to their full scope can only be beneficial for the health-care system,” she says. “It gives me not only that responsibility, but there’s an expectation there that I step up to the plate and provide top-quality care for these patients.” (Belleville Intelligencer, Dec. 14)
