Problems only shifted when wait times cut, union says. Pauline Tam, Ottawa Citizen, May 25, 2010 Shorter waits in emergency rooms have not necessarily translated into better care for Ontario patients, the province's nurses charge. Despite receiving millions in extra funding to cut long waits in emergency departments, some hospitals are not using that money to hire extra nurses, as was intended by the government, said the Ontario Nurses' Association. ... ER

SooToday.com, May 4, 2010 Recently, articles and letters have appeared in local media alleging the elimination of a significant number of nursing positions at Sault Area Hospital (SAH). These allegations have been made by both the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) and some elected officials in the Ontario legislature. At no time did any representatives of the aforementioned contact SAH officials to request or verify the information they were citing. ... Sault

Ontario Nurses' Association, May 3, 2010 Pembroke - Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN will be in Pembroke tomorrow to visit registered nurses and tour Miramichi Lodge as part of Nursing Week celebrations. Haslam-Stroud will be joined by ONA Vice-President Anne Clark, RN for a tour of the facility. The two will meet with ONA members from 11:30 AM to 4:00 PM. Though Nursing Week doesn't officially commence until May 10, Haslam-Stroud will travel the province both during the week leading up to Nursing Week and for several days following it. ONA's theme for Nursing Week 2010 is "Celebrate our Nurses: The Heart of Health Care" ... Ontario

Ontario Nurses’ Association, April 7, 2010 On Wednesday, members of the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) joined more than 200 people in an Ontario Health Coalition protest. The demonstration took place outside of a downtown Toronto hotel where The Honourable Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, was giving a speech to The Canadian Club of Toronto. Demonstrators criticized Minister Matthews and Premier Dalton McGuinty for ignoring and downplaying the consequences of provincial government cuts that have closed hospitals for thousands of Ontarians, reduced hospital services, increased user fees, redirected patients to inappropriate facilities ... Nurses

Donna Casey, Sarnia Observer, March 26, 2010 Nurses at the Ottawa Hospital should expect more layoffs in the wake of next year's funding increases laid out in the provincial budget, says the head of Ontario's largest nursing union. A 1.5% increase to hospital budgets for the 2010-11 fiscal year will mean additional staff cuts beyond the 133 positions already identified by the hospital last month, said Linda Haslam-Stroud, president of the Ontario Nurses Association. "Unless the Ottawa Hospital can magically come up with ways to reduce money in areas other than front-line care, I assume there will be a lot more layoffs of registered nurses and less patient care," said Haslam-Stroud ... Nurses

Ontario Nurses' Association, March 25, 2010 Toronto - Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN says that today's provincial budget means more service and nursing cuts for patients in this province. "Every Ontarian should brace themselves for yet more cuts to the health care they need and count on," said Haslam-Stroud, following the release of the provincial budget. Base funding for hospitals will increase by just 1.5 per cent for 2010/11. Haslam-Stroud notes that care has already been cut in communities throughout Ontario in recent months, and the 1.5 per cent increase means that we will see more of the same. ... Ontario

Lisa Rainford, InsideToronto.com, February 9, 2010 When registered nurse Karla Dozzi arrived in Haiti as part of an emergency medical team some five days after the earthquake, the streets were full of people walking aimlessly, most of them wearing masks. "At first I thought, 'what's that smell,'" she said over a hot apple cider at Holy Oak, one of her favourite coffee shops, on Bloor Street West, east of Lansdowne Avenue, not far from her home. That scent, realized the Regent Park Community Health Centre nurse, was the smell of decomposing bodies. Landing in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, January 15 ... Nurse

Sharon Lem, Toronto Sun, February 4, 2010 Two Toronto nurses returning from a two-week relief mission to earthquake-ravaged Haiti say the catastrophic conditions will remain imprinted in their memories forever. Maida Mrakovic and Valerie Rzepka volunteered to fly to Haiti on their own time and at their own expense with the Canadian Medical Assistance Teams (CMAT). The 12-person CMAT team set up a field hospital in Leogane, a town of 130,000 located 60 km southwest of Port-au-Prince. They lived in tents, cooked on fires and dug their own latrines. “When we got there, nothing was left standing. You could smell death in the air,” said Mrakovic, 27, a surgical nurse who returned last week. ... Nurses

ONA says government must be accountable for nurses’ safety. Ontario Nurses' Association, August 6, 2009 The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) has applied to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal that dismissed an action on behalf of 53 nurses who contracted SARS while caring for SARS patients in 2003. The May 7th decision by the Court of Appeal said that the province of Ontario owes no private duty of care to the province’s front-line registered nurses. This ruling leaves RNs at risk as they care for patients during the current H1N1 flu pandemic and in other outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases, such as SARS. ... Ontario

York.ca, July 16, 2009 Ontario nurses are experiencing racism on the job to the point they are segregated into certain units within hospitals and onto certain shifts, wrote The Peterborough Examiner July 15, in a story about research by York University Professor Tania Das Gupta. Visible minorities are especially vulnerable, Das Gupta, chair of York’s Department of Equity Studies, said. Das Gupta revealed her findings in a book earlier this month after surveying nurses through the Ontario Nurses’ Association, drawing on 593 responses from nurses across the province, 18 in-depth interviews and arbitration cases. ... Ontario

Welland Tribune, June 20, 2009 Niagara Region hired outside security to monitor public health nurses who silently demonstrated at a regional council meeting Thursday night. About 150 public health nurses represented by the Ontario Nurse's Association have been negotiating a new contract with Niagara Region since April 2008. Union copresident Marian Landry said the nurses will be in a legal strike position June 26 and are scheduled for mediation June 22. ... Security

Canadian OH&S News, May 19, 2009 Toronto - In a major decision, the Court of Appeal for Ontario has dismissed five lawsuits - including one filed by 53 nurses and their families - against the Ontario government in connection with its handling of the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in Toronto, before any of the suits made it to trial. The largest lawsuit, backed by the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA), alleged that the province’s Ministries of Labour (MoL) and Health and Long-term Care (MOHLTC), along with the Provincial Operations Centre (POC), were negligent in their handling of the crisis ... Appeal

Ontario Nurses' Association, May 8, 2009 Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN, says the ruling today that Ontario does not owe a “private law duty of care” to front-line registered nurses sends the wrong message as the world grapples with the possibility of a flu pandemic. The Ontario Court of Appeal today dismissed a class action suit brought by registered nurses following the SARS outbreak in the province in 2003. Two nurses died of SARS they contracted on the job while caring for patients and dozens of RNs were sickened. ... Nurses

Saint Catharine’s Standard, November 6, 2008 The Niagara Health System's new head of nursing says she is interested in one thing - the future. Sue Matthews, the former provincial chief nursing officer for Ontario, was named vice-president of patient services and chief nursing executive this week. She said she wants to help move NHS plans for the new Saint Catharine’s hospital and the health system's restructuring plan to the next step. ... NHS

Program adds nurses to move patients. Daniel Nolan, Hamilton Spectator, November 6, 2008 A new program is under way at Hamilton's hospitals to try to improve patient flow in emergency rooms and put ambulances back on the road faster. The city has been bedeviled with bottlenecks in its emergency rooms because paramedics cannot leave an ER until they have officially handed over responsibility for a patient. As a result, the average offload time at Hamilton Health Sciences' three ER sites is now 29 minutes, when five years ago the target was 10 to 15 minutes. ... Hospitals