Anyone who has experience with the elderly, be they grandparents, parents, or extended family members, knows that their medical needs are often complex, and their isolation profound. As we age, there is no assurance that despite our best efforts to keep healthy and vigorous, we will not find ourselves in
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THE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Can Paid Caregivers Also Be Friends?
Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus Professional caregivers are trained to avoid personal relationships with their clients. There are lots of good reasons why this policy is standard in
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Home care – it’s critical we get it right this time
Ontario’s Community Care Access Centres could have been very different had events unfolded differently in the early 1990s. At the beginning of that decade home care was considered to have more of a leg in social services than health care. … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Home care reform: how wrong are these incentives?
We probably wouldn’t have believed it had we not received the documents outlining the new plan for specialized home care funding. It’s staggering in its ability to further complicate administration of home care and create so-called “efficiencies” for which the … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Will $260 million help restore home care clinical services? Maybe
For home care this is significant. With their feet held to the fire by the NDP, the Wynne government announced last week they were going to invest $260 million in additional funding for home and community care services this year. … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Proposed amendment tightens cap on home support services
The government repeatedly likes to talk about reforming the health system to be more patient-centered, yet often it appears to be headed in the opposite direction. The latest head scratcher is a new amendment to regulation 386/99 of the Home … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: What took so long for community funding to arrive?
Community health care received the biggest percentage increase from this spring’s provincial budget, signalling the government’s intention to transition more of the health system into home care and other community supports. At four per cent clearly…
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Five Tips for Surviving Caregiving
A few weeks ago, I travelled to Vancouver to address a family association and also to give a talk about how we use Tyze Personal Networks to coordinate Nick’s care. I’ve written extensively on Tyze before, but for the uninitiated, Tyze is a softw…
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: CCACs could play expanded role as direct home care providers
Doris Grinspun, the executive director of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) has been a tireless defender of public not-for-profit health care. We’ve seen her speak truth to power at numerous conferences and public events. When she advocates on … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Is competitive bidding in home care done? Let’s hope so.
September 10 Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, tweeted that Health Minister Deb Matthews had just announced to a nursing meeting that the moratorium on competitive bidding in home care would be made permanent. No … Continue reading →
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Saying "I’m Fine" When I’m Not
Yesterday I was chatting with an online friend – a mother who is lightyears ahead of me in wisdom and experience. We were talking about coping with the stress of raising a child who is very medically complex. My friend wrote “I’ve always felt like two people. The woman I
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Stories we couldn’t let pass by this week
CCACs hire 144 direct care nurses This month the government announced 900 new nursing positions to come from their 2007 commitment to 9,000 new nurses for the health system. Among them are 144 nurses who will go into the schools … Continue reading →
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