March/April 2019

Seniors in Ontario often face a shortage of affordable housing and long wait lists for long-term care. Shared housing is an option for many seniors. In Port Perry, four women – two of them retired RNs -- decided to move into a renovated home that would support their needs as they age.

Higher staff turnover at Sarnia’s Bluewater Health is said to be a result of the shift to a younger workforce says Shannon Landry, the organization’s chief nursing executive. “Probably one of the biggest increases we’ve seen is the number of maternity leaves,” she says.

A letter by RNAO CEO Doris Grinspun was published in the Ottawa Citizen (April 5). In response to the province’s announcement to defund Ottawa Public Health’s (OPH) drug consumption site, RNAO is calling on the provincial government to restore funding for OPH as well as two other sites in Toronto.   

St. Joseph’s Health Care London has launched a pilot project to connect local youth with mental health-care professionals. The TELEPROM-Y mobile app allows patients and their health-care team to talk via secure video link, message back-and-forth, and schedule in-person appointments.

For RN Susan Robertson, a busy hockey mom, nothing was out of the ordinary. She was constantly on the go, taking her kids to practices or weekend tournaments for hockey and baseball. Then, at 37, she had a stroke. “I first went to the clinic with a sore left arm.

 With a measles outbreak in New York City last fall, and a number of confirmed cases in B.C. early this year, public health initiatives are more crucial than ever.

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott announced on Feb. 26 that the provincial government hopes to make it easier for patients to navigate the health system by creating a central agency called Ontario Health (see more on pages 6, 10 and 17). “Nurses have been calling out our system’s failings for years.