RNAO remains concerned about the reopening schools in Ontario, and calls on the Ontario government to follow the evidence and mandate the physical distance, proper ventilation and masking for all school children that will keep them, their families and our communities safe.

Each year in the winter months, hospitals and other health and social services feel the pressure of increased demand due to influenza and other seasonal ailments such as falls and seasonal affective disorder, a phenomenon called the Winter Seasonal Surge Season, fondly termed “Winter Surge”. This year, the seasonal strain on our health care system is expected to be compounded by a second wave of COVID-19 cases, so it is even more imperative to develop effective approaches to address Winter Surge.

Today our focus is on Cuba, a Caribbean island with about 11 million population and a very different economic and political regime. Canadians know Cuba well through their tourist visits – more than one million in 2019 – enjoying the beaches, food, music and friendly welcoming from the Cuban people. Today, we are interested in a different facet of Cuban society – the community focus of its health system and their success, so far, in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. There are important insights for us in Ontario.

There is little doubt that school reopening in September is one of the most crucial policy decisions in terms of the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario and everywhere else. Ontario has about two million school age children and 160,000 teachers – those are huge numbers. That means wrong decisions will have fateful implications both for the health and wellbeing of children and their parents, teachers and staff, as well as for the pandemic curve.

RNAO says the long-term care (LTC) staffing study released by the government today highlights deficiencies known for decades, and underlines an LTC sector that has been neglected by government after government, resulting in severe underfunding and understaffing.

Let me begin by repeating what I have begged government at all levels since January, and in particular from Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health David Williams: We must prepare for the worst and hope for the best. During the first wave of COVID-19 in Ontario, we had it backwards – we hoped for the best, but engaged action late and at a slow pace, thus ending in the middle of the pack.

RNAO urges the Ontario government to immediately direct all nursing homes in Ontario to reunite residents with their loved ones, including those in nursing homes experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak. RNAO’s call is driven by the need to address a basic human right, and also to provide the foundational person- and family-centred care that is critical to quality of life for LTC residents and their families.

Nurses face significant mental health issues from high rates of work-related stress, anxiety, depression, burnout and PTSD. A recent report from investigators at the University of Regina in collaboration with the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions found that 81.7% of nurses surveyed reported experiencing critical incident stress at least once during their career.

This month marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, and is being celebrated by the World Health Organization as the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. A pioneering nurse, statistician and social reformer, Nightingale has served as an exemplar for the impact that nurses make across the globe. It seems apt, then, that the spread of a global pandemic should coincide with efforts to recognize the valuable contributions of nursing to health worldwide.

RNAO has been for several weeks calling on public health authorities in Ontario and in Canada to immediately implement mandatory masking in certain settings. Specifically, we follow the Masks4Canada letter from healthcare professionals asking that mandatory masking (or face covering) policies be established for “ACT”