35 VON PSWs get last minute deal, 4500 RCCP PSWs to strike
35 down, 4,500 to go. OPSEU’s 35 personal support workers reached a tentative agreement with VON Grey Bruce late this afternoon while 4,500 PSWs working for Red Cross/Care Partners will…
opseudiablogue
Something is off this December — we’re ditching the parties for placards
Something is definitely off this holiday season. Instead of being invited to the usual round of parties, we’re getting invitations to demonstrations and press conferences. Instead of decorating halls we’re…
Arnprior rally to oppose ongoing cuts to rural hospital
Arnprior is an Ottawa Valley community 66 kilometres north of the nation’s capital. The town is built around the mouth of the Madawaska River and has a population of more…
$110k Owen Sound MPP shrugs off 6-year PSW wage freeze, calls for two years more
Bill Walker walked into the room with a big smile but his body language gave away his discomfort of being a Tory MPP in a union hall. He constantly fidgeted…
Poirier should hold Gallinger to account for treatment of VON PSWs
Today we’re in Owen Sound to talk to the media about the VON’s treatment of 35 Personal Support Workers. In the scheme of things, 35 part-time PSWs represent a small…
VON Grey Bruce — Nobody respects a cheapskate
Sometimes the government and its contract health providers just don’t know where to draw the line between fiscal responsibility and simply being cheap. Nobody respects a cheapskate except for other…
Mental Health: Strike looming over province’s failed promise
Hopefully Kingston Mayor Mark Gerretsen made some phone calls yesterday. Having met with unionized staff members from Frontenac Community Mental Health and Addictions Services, he expressed concern about a potential…
Today’s austerity will be tomorrow’s professional shortage
During the November meeting of the Canadian Health Professional Secretariat, our colleagues in British Columbia let us know that they are seeing increasing numbers of health professionals migrate there from…
Outbreak equals opportunity
It’s the things that go wrong in the health system that often preoccupy us. While we frequently look for big answers, it is often in the everyday efforts that real…
Harris had to stop hospital cuts after two years – what about Wynne?
When Health Minister Deb Matthews spoke at the closing of this year’s Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) HealthAchieve, the hall was two-thirds empty. Only two days before there was standing room…
Funding “reform” has CEOs chasing hospital mergers
In a perfect world hospitals would be publicly funded to meet the health needs of their communities. That would be it. When the government started talking about funding reform, the…
Toilets without seats — warnings from England
Too big to fail. For most that expression applies to big banks, but what about our health care? As Ontario prepares the way for further transfer (read: privatization) of hospital…
The Lang-Jimbo Reality Show? CBC may be missing its moment
Somebody suggested that the CBC would be a far more interesting place if the Lang-O’Leary Exchange morphed into the Lang-Jimbo Reality Show. Now that’s a CBC we might be inclined…
Thinking upstream — new institute invites us to think differently about health and politics
Dr. Ryan Meili has received considerable attention for his short 2012 book A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health can Revive Canadian Democracy. Little did we know that the…
Windsor: Cancer Care Ontario finds out the hard way about community engagement
Score one for the Windsor community. After Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) told the Windsor Regional Hospital that it had to transfer thoracic cancer surgeries to London or else, CCO found…
Royal Ottawa — prosecutions fly below the radar
The Ministry of Labour inspectors have significant powers when it comes to enforcing the Occupational Health and Safety Act. What’s difficult to discern is where the dividing line is between…
A single question that could change how we approach population health
In all the talk about health care sustainability we lose sight of the fact that the interventions that cost the least and are likely to have the biggest impact on…
We don’t want to know the cancer risk of our drug of choice
We love our booze. It’s our drug of choice. Given 83 per cent of men and 74 per cent of women are drinkers; we don’t want to hear about the…
Underpaid PSWs locked out after refusing wage concessions
The March of Dimes is a registered charity that helps Ontarians with disabilities live independently. Recently the charity locked out about 30 Oakville Personal Support Workers (PSWs) after they refused…
Jim – it’s you who loves P3s, not us
The Honourable Jim Flaherty Minister of Finance House of Commons Centre Block Building – Room 435-S Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Dear Jim – We get it. You love public-private partnerships,…