Domestic Abuse?
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,…
Home Care
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…