Nursing home care aides are burning out but measures can be taken to improve their work conditions. And that will result in better care for their patients
By Carole A. Estabrooks and Stephanie A. Chamberlain University of Alberta Many of us have moms and dads or older friends and relatives in nursing home facilities. We care very much about their well-being and the supports they receive. But who’s caring for the care aides who do the bulk of the front-line work in…
Solving long hospital wait times requires a fundamental shift in the way we care for the elderly
By David Wiercigroch University of Toronto and Caberry Weiyang Yu Queen's University Hospital overcrowding is not a new issue. Limited bed spaces have plagued Ontario hospitals for years and are increasingly straining our system. Not only are long wait times a shameful expectation when patients arrive in the emergency department, providing care in a busy…
Older Canadians say their top priorities are better co-ordinated care systems and more community and home-based supports
By Katherine McGilton University of Toronto and John Muscedere Canadian Frailty Network More than one million Canadians are medically frail – approximately 25 per cent of those are over age 65 and 50 per cent past age 85. The aging of Canadian society and the growing number of older adults living with frailty poses unprecedented societal…
Almost half of those with developmental disabilities are diagnosed with mental illness or addiction and are among the most frequent visitors to ERs
By Yona Lunsky University of Toronto and Robert Balogh University of Ontario Institute of Technology With the recent federal commitment to increase mental health funding across Canada, we need to turn our attention toward a group of individuals who are invisible within Canada’s mental health system – a group that has some of the greatest…
The full-press family crew marshalled at 9 a.m., minus the grandparents, who were entertained off-site by a caregiver
After just cresting 70, Grandpa and Grandma moved from Vancouver to a Vancouver Island retirement home designed for them by their daughter (my wife). Here, 20 years of gardening, fishing, golfing and family visits have passed in an instant. Now cresting 90, the pleasures of a larger home and two cars have given way to…
Long wait times (and their consequences) shouldn’t be the price we pay for a universal health-care
An unfortunate reality of Canadian health care, is that long wait times that have characterized it for years have made us come to accept delayed treatment as the norm. What we often forget is that while some patients may be able to wait for treatment, others may be in considerable physical pain, may experience mental stress,…
Most of us do not have the means of providing palliative care for our loved ones
Choice now trumps life as Canada's political preference of, well, choice. For the first 149 years of our country’s existence, life had dignity and deserved the fullest protection of the law. But by this time next year, Parliament must codify the principle that the choice to take one's life is a greater good than life…
By Carole A. Estabrooks and Stephanie A. Chamberlain University of Alberta Many of us have moms and dads or older friends and relatives in nursing home facilities. We care very much about their well-being and the supports they receive. But who’s caring for the care aides who do the bulk of the front-line work in…
