Voice your concerns and recommendations about home and community care

AOHC encourages its members to take advantage of an important opportunity to improve home and community care in Ontario. Early next year a group of experts convened by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care will present recommendations on how to improve home and community care. As a first step, the group is distributing a survey to probe:

• frustrations experienced in receiving home and community care

• changes needed to increase coordination and integration of services (e.g., hospital transitions, primary care, home and community care, social services)

•  ways that providers could better meet the needs

This survey provides a platform to voice concerns about how current services respond poorly to the needs of marginalized populations. It also provides an ideal opening to spotlight the capability of our Model of Health and Wellbeing in developing a more integrated, accessible and equitable approach to care coordination and system navigation for home and community care services. 

Next week, AOHC will submit our response to the survey.  We will post it in the next edition of the bulletin and encourage submissions from frontline providers who can speak firsthand about home and community care problems as well from people who can speak directly to needed change.  The deadline for submission is next Friday October 31^st, 2014. 

Please send copies of your submissions to Mary MacNutt:  marym@aohc.org. These details will greatly assist our advocacy efforts at provincial tables.

Here are the links to the survey for direct online submission:

English

French

You can also download and complete the survey and mail it to:

Home and Community Care Review

PO Box 29612 Central Parkway PO

Mississauga, ON  L5A 4H2

Or email it to: homeandcommunitycarereview@gmail.com  

Stop private clinics

The Ontario Health Coalition is concerned that the government is stripping local community hospitals of services by cutting or privatizing them. The private clinics are charging user fees in violation of the Canada Health Act and the principles of Medicare.

A rally is planned at Queens Park at noon on November 21 to stop private clinics and save local public hospitals.

More information

Doctors for Medicare oppose Saskatchewan's pay-per-use MRI proposal

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is considering a pay-per-use MRI service where patients can pay for priority treatment and move ahead of the queue. Opponents fear this means moving away from universal, publicly-funded health care, and longer waits for many.

Add your comment to Premier Wall's Facebook page 

Proposed new law could mean better protection for workers

MPPs at Queens Park will soon be debating Bill 18, "Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act", a proposed new law that has the potential to improve working conditions for people in unstable employment. The Workers Action Centre wants help to make the Bill stronger and ensure that MPPs support it. They are looking for people willing to share their personal stories about wage theft, temporary agency work, minimum wages, and unstable and insecure employment.

If you know people willing to share their story either anonymously or using their own name, please encourage them to contact Workers Action Centre at 416-531-0778 x 230 or info@workersactioncentre.org.

Stop Federal Private Members Bill C-585

An open letter is being sent to MP Corneliu Chisu calling on him to withdraw Bill C-585 which would allow provinces to restrict access to social assistance for refugee claimants. If your organization would like to co-sign, with AOHC and many others, please email isac@lao.on.ca before November 12.

Please sign and share the petition 

Together, AOHC and our member centres are on a journey upstream - away from sickness and toward health and wellbeing - and the Model of Health and Wellbeing is the blueprint for our journey.

This series introduces the Model, brings its principles, values and attributes to life with stories and data, and includes opportunities for review and reflection.

The Model of Health and Wellbeing Online Learning Series.

Click here to order the Model of Health and Wellbeing Online Learning Series, includes bonus introduction

Attached is a brochure that explains how your organization can learn about the leading methodology for patient experience design called "storyboarding" a process design tool for complex, adaptive systems.