To Premier Doug Ford, MPP Rick Byers, Minister of Health Sylvia Jones, and Minister of Long Term Care Paul Calandra:

I am really hoping that you will advocate against PSWs being able to give non-controlled medications in long-term care homes.

As a former RN, and a daughter with a mother in long-term care, I am appalled at this idea. PSWs are not regulated health workers.

Even if PSWs have some kind of a course on drug administration, RNs have four year university degrees and have knowledge and critical thinking skills that PSWs are not trained for.

RPNs are also college regulated and have to have a university degree.

Over the course of the last year or two, I have seen the care from the PSWs go down as they are often short staffed. There is also so much turnover in staff they often don’t even know the resident and that makes the care less reliable and less safe already.

I see them using unsafe, transfer methods or taking chances and moving patients by themselves when they can’t find anyone to help them.

Also, giving out medication is a chance for the RPN or RN to assess the resident.

Just because a drug is a non-controlled drug doesn’t mean there are not decisions to be made about whether the patient should be receiving it that day.

Also, doctors and pharmacies, nurse practioners make mistakes in prescribing and dispensing and a nurse with training and skill can pick some of these up and stop the error. Some drugs look a lot the same, some drugs have very similar names, some drugs should not be crushed because they are long acting, some antibiotics have cross allergies to other antibiotics etc. Insulin and diabetic meds and heart meds can be deadly if not given properly.

When Minister Calandra announced what he was allowing them to do, he described it as topical medications.

He didn’t even get his terminology right! A topical medication is one that usually just goes on the skin or mucous membrane and I don’t think that’s what he meant. He also meant pills, eye drops, etc.

Some of the other things in that bill he is planning and that we are allowed to comment on are not clear because the wording used is  “to clarify these things“. How are we supposed to comment if we don’t know what the clarification is? Please help.

As of April 11, 2023, this change is in effect. I cannot clearly see what the education requirements will be. I saw that it might be clarified in May.                                           

This change was just the beginning of downgrading the the skill level required to perform certain medical acts. Bill 60  “Your Health Act “ was voted in by the Doug Ford government without any public  consultation on May 8 with their majority. It makes amendments on who can call themselves: a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse, a lab technician, a respiratory therapist, who can operate an x-ray machine, who can prescribe narcotics. It has a provision enabling the Ford government to appoint a director for the private clinics that is not a civil servant or The Ministry of Health. Therefore they are not subject to conflict of interest, financial disclosure, freedom of information and reporting regulations covering public servants.  

This bill has passed. We citizens of Ontario cannot stop Bill 60 but we can sure send a big message to the Ford government that the people of Ontario do not want our healthcare privatized!

The Ontario health coalition is planning a citizen lead referendum on Friday, May 26, and Saturday, May 27, with voting stations in communities all across Ontario.               .

Please fight for our public healthcare system and vote “No“ to privatization. On-line voting is already open on the website PublicHospitalVote.ca.                                                     

Judy Downey, Owen Sound