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

Ontario Nurses' Association, June 28, 2008 Toronto - Members of the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) - Canada's largest nurses' union - will participate in Toronto's Pride Day 2008 festivities tomorrow. Front-line nurses from ONA's Region 3 will be part of the Pride event, set to begin at 2 PM at Church and Bloor streets. The registered nurses and allied health professionals will decorate a convertible with Human Rights and Equity Information and march to show support for the city's gay community. ... Ontario

Joanne Laucius, Canwest News Service, June 29, 2008 Ottawa - Aniko Roman has spent the last eight years of her 15-year nursing career in internal medicine at the Ottawa Hospital's General campus. It can be a gruelling assignment. Nurses in the unit care for acutely-ill patients with illnesses ranging from pneumonia to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Roman works two 12-hour days, two 12-hour nights, then gets five days off.  "We have a high turnover in this unit," said Roman. Turnover is a serious issue for hospitals. It is expected that a nursing shortage will hit Canada sometime between 2012 and 2016. ... Giving

Nurses' Union Files for Judicial Review of Board Cuts. Ontario Nurses' Association, June 25, 2008 Toronto - The Ontario Nurses' Association's (ONA), the union representing 54,000 front-line nurses and allied health professionals, has filed an application for judicial review of the decision made by Rouge Valley Health System's board of directors to close its in-patient mental health facilities at Rouge Valley Ajax Pickering Hospital and eliminate 220 union staff positions - including 72 registered nurses - over the next three years. "Rouge Valley Health System has unilaterally decided to close beds and lay off registered nurses," says ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN ... Ontario

Christopher Maughan, Canadian Press, August 16, 2007 Toronto - It's not often that the Leader of the Opposition gets treated to a matinee by his constituents. But an unusual political stunt Thursday had Stephane Dion taking in a screening of Michael Moore's latest movie, accompanied by a group of registered nurses. The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario has been inviting politicians to see "Sicko," Moore's documentary on privately-funded healthcare. Dion said that even though the movie paints a picture of Canadian healthcare that's "a bit rosy," the film serves as an important reminder of the pitfalls of privatization. ... Dion

CBC News, July 31, 2007 Ontario nurses are outraged by a Canadian
Medical Association proposal that would allow doctors to choose the
public or private sphere of health care. The Registered Nurses of
Ontario (RNAO) sees it as a cash grab. "We believe that this is a
strategy for the Canadian Medical Association and those doctors that
follow that type of vision to increase their income at the expense of
the public system and at the expense of longer wait times in the public
system," Doris Grinspun, executive director of the RNAO, told CBC News.
... Ontario

North Bay Nugget, June 15, 2007 The North Bay and District Hospital was fined $25,000 Thursday for failing to protect its workers when it improperly installed an anesthetic gas machine in 2003. Tiz Silveri, the hospital's vice-president of maternal, child and surgery care centre, said she wasn't surprised by the amount of the fine. "The Crown attorney was asking for a fine of $50,000 and we requested a set fine of $10,000, so we weren't surprised with the amount of $25,000." The Ontario Nurses' Association said it's a "wake-up" call to improve occupational health and safety in hospitals. ... Hospital

Kingston Whig-Standard, June 6, 2007 A $5,000 bonus for each nurse recruited is paying off for Quinte Health Care. Eleanor Rivoire, head of nursing at QHC and Kingston General Hospital, said 20 Registered Nurses have been added to QHC staff in the 60 days ending May 31, since the bonus program went into effect. "It started April 1 and it involves $5,000 that would be paid over a period of two years," she said yesterday. Each nurse is paid $2,500 a year and can leave after the two years of service ends, Rivoire said, but that is unlikely. ... Nurses

Ian Elliot, Kingston Whig-Standard, June 2, 2007 Kingston General Hospital has reached its goal of hiring 100 nurses in 100 days, and then some. But after the institution's hiring drive resulted in 122 new nurses joining the staff, the next challenge will be keeping them here. "Retention is a huge issue for us," said Colleen Cuddy, the KGH registered nurse who is in charge of both recruitment and retainment of the staff and who led the hiring drive. "We have to say, 'We got you to come here - now how do we get you to stay?' " The hospital recruited a mix of nurses almost evenly split between recent graduates of nursing programs and career nurses with many years in the field. ... 122