Angela Cooper Brathwaite

Queen’s Park Day in February included 160 members, 60 per cent of whom were first-time attendees. They met with 60 MPPs. RNAO members have a powerful collective voice. We are able to achieve great things for nursing, the health-care system and the health of Ontarians when advocating for healthy public policy. If we expect great things, we will achieve great things.

Following the success of this event, I want to build upon that momentum as we look ahead to another important advocacy event coming up on the RNAO calendar.
Preparations are now underway for Take Your MPP To Work. It is a time-honoured tradition for RNAO, with visits scheduled for May and June. There is no better time than now to invite your local provincial representative (MPP) to work with you since many of the politicians at Queen’s Park are new to their portfolios and their roles as local representatives.

Policy advocacy influences policy decision makers (local, provincial, federal, and even politicians from other countries) to amend laws and make new laws, as well as to support nursing-led programs. It also influences health care and nursing leaders (administrators, CEOs, deans of nursing, chief nurse executives) to develop and implement healthy public policies and healthy work environments within their institutions. And it serves to mentor new graduates, nursing students and novice RNs and NPs on how to engage political leaders. 

Effective advocacy builds our capacity to achieve the greatest good for all Ontarians. For example, RNAO successfully advocated for: increasing the minimum hourly wage from $11.25 in 2015 to $14 in 2018, and now we must keep pushing to continue increasing the minimum wage; keeping supervised consumption sites open, and now we must insist on having these in all communities in need; facilitating the authority for NPs to prescribe controlled substances, and now we want point-of-care testing and more; ensuring RNs continue to initiate psychotherapy as well as RN prescribing, which we must expand.

“If you are interested in organizing a visit with your local MPP, RNAO's policy department has a fantastic toolkit to help make it a success.”

During Nursing Week, we must educate our elected officials, showing them where we work and what we do. This experience will be an eye-opener for many of them. For others, it will provide  an eyewitness account of nursing practice in action, which is a powerful tool to inform them on nursing and health issues, and garner their support to move current and emerging issues forward. 

Additional issues RNAO continues to advocate for include: reclaiming the role of the RN by ensuring new hires in acute care and cancer care are RNs, as well as all first home care visits are done by an RN; increasing access to care by fully utilizing NPs and increasing their numbers; strengthening primary care as an anchoring pillar of the new Ontario Health Teams; transforming long-term care funding and staffing to keep residents healthy and safe; Indigenous health; oral health; using an evidence-based response to overdose deaths; implementing universal pharmacare; protecting our environment; and strengthening our fiscal capacity.

If you are interested in organizing a visit with your local MPP, RNAO’s policy department has a fantastic toolkit to help make it a success. Policy backgrounders are also available to facilitate your work.

I encourage you to review them and remember to share stories from your clinical practice with visiting MPPs. Politicians always appreciate hearing from their constituents and they are grateful if you can paint a picture that helps them better understand a particular issue. It could be staffing levels in long-term-care, the importance of breaking down barriers so NPs can improve access to care, or why we need more RNs. The backgrounders provide the research and your stories demonstrate the important and meaningful work you do every day to save patients’ lives, improve health outcomes and reduce health-care costs. 

Please get in touch right away with RNAO’s policy department (kdieleman@RNAO.ca) to organize a visit at your workplace. Kyle will be happy to connect you with your local MPP, help arrange the visit, and walk you through every step to ensure your visit goes smoothly.  

I am calling all presidents, chairs and executive members of our regions, chapters and interest groups to put this plan into action. Let’s make this year’s Take Your MPP To Work the most memorable event you have ever participated in. Let’s celebrate nurses and the work we do. You have earned the right to be “nursing advocates” by virtue of your commitment, diligence, forward thinking, visionary endeavours and collective voice. You can do it. Are you ready?