Ontario nurses are taking part in a fall tour to get updated on the concerns of nurses across the province, especially as it relates to supervised consumption sites and the opioid crisis.
The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) said this will be the 10th annual fall tour where the association reaches out to its membership across Ontario to gather input on nursing, health and health-care issues, said a news release.
The tour will consist of some in-person and virtual online meetings, including one virtual meeting for Northern Ontario.
RNAO president and nurse practitioner Lhamo Dolkar; immediate past-president Dr. Claudette Holloway and CEO Dr. Doris Grinspun will be taking part in the tour to hear from registered nurses, nurse practitioners and nursing students between Sept. 19 and Oct. 1, said the release.
"The Fall Tour provides nurses and nursing students with the opportunity to engage with their colleagues, share ideas and tackle issues related to their practice and the health system, as well as hear directly from the top leaders of their professional association," said Dolkar.
"Nurses have expertise and insights on how government health and social policies affect their day-to-day practice and the wellbeing of the people they serve," she added.
This year, nurses have been vocal about public health issues including supervised consumption services (SCS) and Ontario's toxic drug crisis, said the release.
"With the Ford's government's announcement to close 10 SCS sites, nurses are cautioning about its impact on the lives of people who use substances, health-care costs and emergency services," said CEO Grinspun.
"Close to 3,800 people across Ontario died from an unregulated drug supply in 2023 alone, and the removal of an essential health-care service – SCS – will only do more harm and result in more lives lost," Grinspun said in the release.
Nurses will also address the following issues:
-The misguided policy agenda leading to privatized health care, and the harms that will result from this, including higher costs and longer wait lists,
-The need for more NPs and NP-led clinics to address the primary care crisis that has left more than two million Ontarians without a regular primary care provider,
-The outdated home care and community care services funding model,
-The urgency to increase funding for long-term care to improve resident care and staffing ratios of RNs and NPs
-Proper funding of hospitals, competitive pay, safe working conditions for nurses, and the need to increase full-time employment – to end Ontario’s reliance on agency work,
-The need for Ontario to sign an agreement with the federal government to immediately implement universal pharmacare
-Environmental determinants of health, including the climate emergency, the exploding rates of cancers linked to environmental pollution, ending the use of fossil fuels, and a public transit agenda to shift people from cars to sustainable means of transportation.
The full details of the tour are included on the RNAO release.
