Hello again!!
I hope everyone is doing well. You may have noticed I have been on a bit of a hiatus lately. In the last six months we have moved to a new town and I have ended maternity leave to start a new job. I am also organizing an event to raise money and awareness for postpartum depression, which many of you know is a cause near and dear to my heart. You can get details here: https://www.crowdrise.com/christinemackie-cotd2014/fundraiser/christinemackie.
On another note, we are two weeks or so away from another election. With that in mind, I wanted to write a post expressing my thoughts (most of you can guess what my feeling are). The following is something the Timmins Candidate posted on social media:
Attention to the nurses of Timmins-James Bay. Please make an informed decision on June 12th
I am shocked doing doors at the number of nurses I meet who say they can't vote for me because PC plan is to cut nurses. No where in our plan did we say we would reduce nurses. In fact healthcare has been identified as one area where there would be no reductions in spending. Yes we would eliminate some mid level bureaucracy and shift funds to front lines. I have had many conversations with the party over the last year since being nominated at many meetings and conference calls. The need for more nurses and better home and long term care has come up frequently.
After discussing this with two nurses they admitted they should sit down and read the plans and policies instead of just listening to what they are being told.
I am willing to sit down with any nurse in Timmins-James Bay that wants to have a real discussion about our policies and view of health care.
I assure you after going through what my family has gone through in the last 6 months I have a VERY HIGH regard for the value of nurses in our province. With our aging demographic and our desired shift for home-care we will need more.
With all due respect for this candidate, I take offense to the implication that we nurses have not read the PC plan, and as a result are just "towing the union line" Well I have read the platform (Thanks, Ontario PCs, now my social media feed is filled with pro PC rhetoric). As a nurse I get very scared when I hear the words "competition and choice" when it comes to healthcare.
Last year I made the choice to shell out over $2500 for my newborn daughter's hospital stay, because I did not want my sick baby in a room with another sick, coughing toddler (I was concerned that the other contagious baby's bugs would not respect the curtain). These are not the kind of choices in healthcare I want.
I drafted this letter to Mr. Hudak.
Dear Mr.
Hudak,
I am a busy
mom to four beautiful children. I am a Registered Nurse and I am concerned
about your “One Million Jobs Plan”. Just to make sure I am clear on your plan,
you are going to cut 100,000 public service jobs, in order to create one million
new ones. Do I have that correct? My union is apparently misleading me. You have no intention of cutting nurses.
Whew!
As the sole breadwinner for my family I can tell you that is a load off
my mind.
I am very
fortunate to have a career as a Registered Nurse, one that I am very proud of. I
like your promise “To move health closer to home by expanding home care and
long term care availability” (One Million Jobs plan, p 15) As a former hospital nurse now community
nurse, I see people struggle every day to maintain their health and independence
in their own homes. I have seen people
“stuck “ in the hospital because they can no longer manage independently and
there are no long term beds available. I
see the strain and drain this creates on the hospital staff, and on the
patients themselves. So kudos to you Mr. Hudak for fixing this problem.
Naturally,
in order to realize your plan and fix a problem of this magnitude, you are
going to need a lot of people. Let’s
see, first you will need Social Workers to assist the patients in making all of
their new found choices. You will also need more Personal Support
Workers and Health Care Aides to care for the people in the newly created long
term care spaces (Current PSW to resident ratios are around 1:15, if you are lucky). You will also need staff to support them, like people to
answer the phones, prepare and serve the food, cleaners and maintenance staff.
Good thing you are creating a million jobs.
I don’t see any of these jobs talked about in
your ads. I see chemical engineers, well inspectors, and other skilled jobs but not a lot of out work healthcare workers. Of course if by “encouraging
competition and choice” you mean contracting services to private companies,
than no worries. These companies will accept the extra workload but not bother
themselves about hiring extra people to support the demand.
I am not
sure if you are aware Mr. Hudak, but there is a real shortage of healthcare
workers now. The nursing shortage alone is predicted to be more than 116,000 by
2016. That could be a really big problem for someone hoping to expand long term
care, and homecare. You see even if you wanted to hire more nurses you could
not find them to hire them. By the way, the number of nurses choosing home care
or long term care for their career is dropping. So is enrollment in nursing programs, which means fewer graduates each year.
Indeed it is a bad time to be a senior in
Ontario, and it is only going to get worse as the nursing shortage increases.
Don ‘t get
me wrong, I am very grateful that my job is secure. (Since there is no one
coming to replace me). Good thing I love my job, since I will be doing it for
the rest of my life (Thanks to the benefit and pension cuts, but hey at least I
have a job). And I am sure my kids will be fine in whatever daycare I can find
for them, and they will be fine never seeing me, since I am always working.
Good thing they have school to depend on. A teacher who cares for them and
supports them and helps them grow and thrive…that is assuming that in their
class of 33 the teacher isn’t too busy dealing with other children who have
higher needs than my well behaved children. But that’s ok because if the
teacher doesn’t have the time, I do. Oh wait no I don’t. Well, I am sure it
will be fine.
Education is overrated anyway.
Sincerely,
Christine
Macke, Registered Nurse mom of 4.
