RNAO’s Middlesex Elgin chapter hosted a Take Your MPP To Work (TYMTW) event at London’s InterCommunity Health Centre on July 6, where members discussed the nursing shortage and the need for wage parity across acute care and community care settings in Ontario. Comparing 2022 salaries for unionized nurses in hospital with unionized nurses in the community (specifically those working for the Victorian Order of Nurses), the latter are paid anywhere from six to 30 per cent less, depending on years of service and bargaining unit. “People tend to go to the job that is better paying,” chapter president Janet Hunt says. “It would be nice to see community nurses paid what their value is.” During her discussions with MPPs, Hunt also highlighted the importance of allowing RNs to prescribe some medications, which would allow community nurses “…more independence in prescribing some small medications that their patients may need.” RNAO has been advocating for RN prescribing for more than a decade, and continued its advocacy for movement on this important practice change when nurses were at the legislature for Queen’s Park Day (QPD) in March (read more about the event in our QPD feature in this issue). This Middlesex Elgin TYMTW event was another opportunity to advocate. NDP MPPs Teresa Armstrong and Terence Kernaghan, and PC MPP Rob Flack attended, and assured nurses they would take their concerns back to Queen’s Park. For resources and fact sheets pertaining to understaffing and other key issues that RNAO continues to advocate with MPPs, visit Queen's Park Day. (CTV News London, July 6)