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GRUDGING A NURSE by Peter F. Trent '96 106 Wednesday-Night pages on Nursing Wikipedia | search | clusty | U-tube

2008

Friday 16 May 2008 OTTAWA: NURSES COMMIT ERRORS FROM FATIGUE
Statistics Canada reports that almost one-fifth of the country's nurses acknowledge making mistakes in medicating patients either "occasionally" or "frequently." StatsCan bases its finding on a survey in 2005 of 19,000 nurses. The study shows that nurses working overtime or in environments where resources are overstretched are more prone to error. The research shows a connection between medication error and work organization and workplace environment but not between errors and experience and educational levels.

Friday Mar 14, 2008 Small step for nurses is worth a try
It's amazing what a little bit of domestic competition will do, isn't it? Faced with the prospect of hundreds of nurses fleeing the province's hospital wards for much cushier jobs in private clinics, Health Minister Philippe Couillard has come up with a modest scheme designed to make the life of a hospital nurse just a little less gruelling.

Friday 18 January 2008 OTTAWA: NURSES PROPOSE HEALTH CARE REMEDY
Canada's registered nurses said Thursday moving away from hospital care and leaning more toward community care could cure the country's ailing health-care system. The Canadian Nurses Association said problems with access to health services can be eradicated by 2020 if governments embrace significant changes to the roles of health-care professionals and technology. Association President Dr. Marlene Smadu said the world will face more active, virulent illnesses and diseases in the coming years. But she predicted an adapting workforce, new technology and major advances in genetic research could help Canada meet the challenges head on. Dr. Smadu predicted hospitals will soon virtually go the way of the dinosaur, with patients being treated more often in their homes, hospices and other community settings instead. The CNA's vision of health care in the future is far more optimistic than that of the Canadian Medical Association, which last week offered stark warnings about future health care problems in Canada.

Friday Jan 18, 2008 Bigger role for nurses seen as health-care solution
The president of the Canadian Nurses Association says an expanded role for nurses will result in no ...

2007

5 June 2007 rci ST. JOHN'S: NURSES DEMAND GOVTS. ACT TO DEAL WITH SHORTAGES
The president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, Linda Silas, has called on provincial and federal governments to act to deal with a huge shortage of nurses. Mrs. Silas says governments understand the problem but aren't moving fast enough to solve it. She also called for the imposition of nurse-to-patient ratios, something that doesn't exist in any medical jurisdiction in Canada, although she says that one will soon exist in Saskatoon, SK. Mrs. Silas recommends as well that both levels of government do more to retain the services of older nurses while providing permanent, full-time positions for new ones. more

Sunday 14 January 2007 Calgary launches international search for nurses
Calgary health officials are launching their first serious push to hire nursing staff from other countries as they battle a growing shortage of medical professionals that is closing beds at hospitals in the southern Alberta city.

2006

Monday Apr 3, 2006 rci Just a few hours before an important deadline, the labour union representing nurses in British Columbia reached a tentative contract settlement with the Health Employers' Association late on Friday. The deal was arranged before a deadline passed to make nurses ineligible for signing bonuses from a fund of CDN$1 billion created by the provincial government. According to the union, the agreement makes significant gains for the nurses in key areas, including workload and compensation. It includes a signing bonus. The B.C. finance minister, Carole Taylor, had set March 31 as the deadline for public-sector workers to be eligible for the bonus.
The union represents 29,000 nurses. Only the union representing 631 resident doctors had not made a deal. More than a dozen public-sector unions, including those representing post-secondary education institutions and community social service workers, reached settlements hours before the deadline. But 67,000 employees in the B.C. school system, including 39, teachers, have not reached contract settlements. The nurses' union is recommending that members accept the agreement.

Wednesday Nov 16, 2005 ts Health unions demand switch to safety needles
The lives of Ontario's nurses and health-care workers are being put at risk because the government hasn't mandated the use of safety needles, unions representing health-care employees across the province said today.

Wednesday Aug 24, 2005 rci TORONTO: NURSE'S FAMILY IN SARS DEATH MAY SUE
Ontario Superior Court has ruled that the family of a Toronto nurse who died of SARS may sue the Ontario government for $12 million in damages. The court ruled that the suit can proceed, without ruling on its grounds. Nelia Laroza died in late June 2003, She worked in a hospital ward where six patients also died of SARS. Her family bases its suit on the claim that provincial health authorities relaxed their safety measures in hospitals after the first wave of cases had subsided, and before the second began. The family argues that the easing of the safety measures shouldn't have occurred because it was well understood at the time that hospitals were incubators for SARS.

Sunday Aug 7, 2005 ts
Ontario freezes nursing home fees
For the second year in a row, residents of nursing homes in Ontario won`t have to pay higher rates for basic accommodation out of their own pockets, Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday.

Tuesday Jul 26, 2005 Hundreds of senior nurses in the Canadian province of Ontario are being encouraged to delay their retirement plans to help ease a chronic nursing shortage across the province. The provincial government says it will spend 28-Million dollars this year to allow nurses 55 years and older to spend 20 per cent of their job in less demanding roles. The older nurses would monitor younger nurses, offer clinical advice and educate patients and their families The province estimates that 17-hundred Ontario nurses over age 55 will continue working under the new program instead of retiring in the next year. The government says that another 5-thousand new nurses need to be hired over the next several years to eliminate shortages. A 2003 report warned that Canada's health-care system could lose as many as 64-thousand nurses within three years in the absence of programs to prevent nurses from early retirement.

Nurses should assist doctors
Nurses should be trained so they can be the main assistant to surgeons — a job usually done by other doctors, says a new report obtained by the Toronto Star.

Saturday Apr 9, 2005 rci The lawsuit by 53 nurses against the governments of Ontario, Canada and the city of Toronto continued on Friday. The plaintiffs contracted Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in the SARS outbreak in the Toronto area two years. The nurses are seeking $7.5 million each in punitive, general and special damages. A statement by the Ontario Nurses Association submitted in Ontario Superior Court on Friday states that provincial health authorities waited 15 days after they had advised doctors how to protect themselves to offer to nurses the same advice. The provinces lawyers said the authorities informed doctors as a courtesy and weren't obliged to do the same for nurses, the responsibility for both being that of their employers, the hospitals. Forty-four people died in the SARS outbreak.

Sunday Mar 6, 2005 rci TORONTO: AD CAMPAIGN ANGERS NURSES
Ontario's nurses' association is demanding a public apology from Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group for a new ad campaign that they say demeans nurses. The advertisements for Virgin's new Canadian mobile phone service began this past week. They show nurses in short skirts and stiletto heels. The association, which represents 21,000 nurses, says that the ads are "a stereotype of women and nurses we have been fighting for half a century." The ads are not meant to offend anyone, said a spokesman for Virgin, who added that the company had no plans to stop the campaign.

Tuesday 18 January 2005 ts Hospital rescue can`t halt layoffs Nurses working in intensive care units and cardiac wards are being laid off despite the province`s $200-million hospital rescue plan, the Ontario Nurses Association says.

Thursday Jan 6, 2005 cbc QUEBEC NURSES WHO FAILED FRENCH TEST LOSE JOBS AT ENGLISH HOSPITAL Two nurses at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, a primarily English institution, have lost their licences and their jobs because they failed to pass a French grammar test required by Quebec's professional order of nurses.

NURSING CRISIS BURIED UNDER ICE by John Lofranco
9:45AM December 15, 2004

With the Prime Minister extending his hand to help solve the NHL lockout and all the Big Six putting yesterday’s abortive meeting at the top of their coverage, it’s clear hockey is an important issue for Canadians. But there’s another crisis looming, and MediaScout suggests the papers leave the sports in the sports section and spill a little ink on the more serious problem. According to a report released yesterday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, as many as 100,000 nurses are expected to retire within the next five years—that’s one-third of an already beleaguered workforce, an exodus that could seriously worsen already long wait times. The story was featured on the National (unavailable online) and CTV News, but the papers push coverage of the report to the inside, and no comment pieces address the issue. With fewer than one in ten Canadian nurses under the age of thirty, and more than one in three over the age of fifty, the health care system is in for a big shock, but no one seems to be taking notice.

In his year-end television interview with The National, the Prime Minister said that he was most proud of his work with the provinces on health care. In the Globe, John Ibbitson takes Martin to task for his lack of real action on health care, but misses the chance to bring up the nursing crisis. A good chunk of any new federal money needs to go to nursing education and staffing; otherwise, says Deborah Tamlyn, president of the Canadian Nurses Association, there will be “bottlenecks in the system.” Governments need to roll back cuts on funding and expand the number of places in nursing schools, overturning the cost-cutting measures of the mid-1990s. They also need to encourage younger men and women to take up the job. There might not be a place for Ottawa at the hockey bargaining table, but there is a desperate need for the government to support Canada’s nurses. If not, the entire health-care house of cards could come crashing down.

Friday Dec 10, 2004 ts
Ontario details $29M plan for nursing
The Ontario government dangled a $29-million carrot in front of the province`s newest nurses today in the form of job opportunities, mentorship training and high-tech clinical simulators — all in an attempt to keep them from leaving.

Monday Sep 13, 2004 cbc
Taking the pulse of Canada's nurses
They check your blood pressure, they give you pills, they clean you and they comfort you. They're nurses - and in Canada, they're tired, worn out, and fed up.

Sunday Aug 22, 2004 ts
Nurses are waiting on tables
What doctor shortage? How about free medical school?

Thursday May 13, 2004 gaz
Hospital patients bring own nurses
A sign staffing levels critical: union. Dismayed by lack of attention in institutions, some families are hiring private caregivers WAnd In Quebec, the shortage of nurses is chronic

Thursday Sep 18, 2003 cbc
MORE CANADIAN NURSES WORKING FULL TIME Ten per cent more nurses in Canada are working full time than in 1998, suggests a report published Wednesday.

Thursday Jul 31, 2003 bbc
SERIOUS NURSING SHORTAGE WITHIN YEARS: REPORT Canada needs to retain older nurses with job incentives or face a nursing shortage across the country, according to a new study.

Thursday Jun 19, 2003 cbc
NURSES STILL WORRIED ABOUT SARS MASKS Ontario nurses are urging the province to do a better job of testing hospital masks in the battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Tuesday Jun 10, 2003 nyt
Nursing Wounds
By CLAIRE FAGINAND and CORINNE RIEDER
The nation's nursing schools have been turning away qualified applicants at a time when America faces a shortage of nurses.

Friday Jun 21, 2002 cbc MORE NURSING STUDENTS NEEDED TO HEAD OFF SEVERE SHORTAGE Canada's nursing shortage is going to get much worse and governments have to act immediately to avoid putting patients at risk, according to a new report.

Tuesday Jun 18, 2002 cbc
NURSING WORKFORCE GOES GREY Nurses are aging and their numbers haven't kept up with the pace of population growth, according to a report released Tuesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

The average annual salary of a US Staff Nurse (RN) ranges from $42,250 to $48,375. The Salary Survey by geographical region is updated monthly and included in the Nationwide Hospital Job Guide NURSING Edition .
For complete details of our Wage, Salary, Sign-On Bonus and Benefit Survey, subscribe to the FREE Nationwide Hospital Job Guide NURSING Edition and receive 26 times a year.

Saturday Jun 1, 2002 cbc
QUEBEC NURSES SEEK TIGHTENED SECURITY AFTER STABBING The Quebec Federation of Nurses has launched a campaign to make hospitals more aware of workplace dangers when patients become violent.

March 4, 2002 cnn
Nursing home patients have been dragged down hallways, doused with ice water, sexually assaulted and beaten in their beds, yet few prosecutions have resulted, a congressional investigation found.
The Senate Special Committee on Aging's 18-month review concluded that many physical and sexual abuse cases in nursing homes are not treated the same as similar crimes elsewhere, and it is presenting evidence that includes a dramatic deathbed interview with one victim

Friday Mar 1, 2002 cpc<
Hospitals in Quebec looking for new ways to overcome a crippling shortage of nurses, says they're not willing to change the responsibilities of nursing assistants, in order to relieve the stress on the system.

2001

Fri 6/1/01 11:59 AM A new threat to health care Yesterday, public hearings began on the Parti Quebecois government's bill to change the way regional health boards, hospitals and health-care institutions are governed. The proposed law, Bill 28, amounts to a government takeover of institutions that rightfully belong to the public and that depend on support from the community. Of all the pressing issues in Quebec's health-care system, the structure and composition of boards of directors might not strike the average patient or his family as the most urgent. Lineups for heart surgery would rank higher in most people's minds, as would the wait for cancer treatment, the purchase of MRIs or the shortage of nurses.

Mon 3/12/01 Nurses deserve much more If patients are complaining now that Quebec lacks nurses, just wait, the shortage could get much worse. Across the province today, a deficit of "only" 1,000 nurses exists. If present trends continue, within 14 years the shortage could balloon to an alarming 17,500. That's not good news for Quebec's rapidly aging population. Baby-boomers, who will be in their health-care intensive years, would be left without proper care.

Mon Mar 5 2001 cbc

HEALTH MINISTER UNVEILS PLAN TO HELP NURSES Quebec Health Minister Pauline Marois has come up with an action plan to cure Quebec's shortage of nurses. Marois released the first phase of the plan on Monday morning.

Wed 3/7/01 7:02 AM Beds for baby-boomers
By: STEVEN A. GROVER I read the thoughtful commentary by Allan Sniderman (Gazette, Feb. 26 not on the web), where he analyzed the plans for the new MUHC superhospital and concluded that it might be a supermistake.
Sniderman's analysis was critical and balanced, reflecting his long experience as a physician and McGill professor. Perhaps more important, his comments recognized that physicians, nurses, hospital staff and administrators share one common reality with the public - we all one day will be patients. Accordingly, if the new superhospital turns out to be less than promised, we will all suffer the consequences.

2000

21/Nov/2000 Nurses hired by hundreds
By: AARON DERFEL The Gazette
Hospitals across Quebec have started hiring nurses again by the hundreds, signaling a dramatic change in the health-care system, a study released yesterday reveals. After maintaining a hiring freeze since 1994, hospitals and other health-care institutions recruited 2,781 nurses last year - the greatest single increase in new employees since 1991.

1999

July 6 1999The Catharsis of Nurses
"Mr. Bouchard's problem is that the nurses are not common criminals. Perhaps it is a just irony. Nurses take care of us when we are sick. Indeed perhaps their actions, although illegal, will bring about the necessary and final catharsis for the Quebec society so that Quebec can move forward in a new way."
thanks to Chris Goodfellow

1996

see GRUDGING A NURSE Jan 25, 1996 by Peter Trent

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