Mental health

Recently, I found myself reflecting on a conversation with a nursing student. She spoke with clarity and conviction about witnessing families navigating poverty, elders isolated from care, and communities facing environmental risks that rarely make headlines.

RN Keren Elumir provides care at Toronto’s Moss Park Consumption and Treatment Service. On a typical day, she responds to overdoses, oversees injections of substances, offers primary care and connects clients with other community services.

On May 28, we marched to Queen’s Park with a large and vocal group of care providers, families and concerned Ontarians to demand funding for supervised consumption services (SCS) sites across Ontario. Many of those involved were driven by first-hand personal and/or professional experiences that prove SCS saves lives.

Sudbury’s only sanctioned supervised consumption site (SCS) – formally called Minoogawbi, La Place, The Spot and informally known as The Spot – was forced to close its doors at the end of March. The city terminated its funding of the site at the end of December 2023, suggesting the province step in.

RN Jorge Santos has the unique experience of getting to work alongside one of his former patients at Toronto’s Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. Santos’ colleague is Emily Chan, a social worker who, until the age of six, underwent physical rehab at the hospital.

NP Beth Hayhoe has been volunteering with Toronto’s Yonge Street Mission for nearly 30 years. The organization recently spent $3 million to expand its health and dental centre for youth in the city’s downtown neighbourhood.