Inside the Circle – February 8, 2022

The Ontario Community Support Association (OCSA) has released their 2022 pre-budget consultation submission. Their submission outlines seven reasons why the province needs to invest $677M in Ontario’s home and community care sector to safeguard the future sustainability of our health system.

OCSA’s CEO Deborah Simon spoke about the need for further funding for the home and community care sector at the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs’ public hearing on Bill 43, Build Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2021. Read her remarks.

Helen’s quality of life was greatly improved thanks to the tablet she received through our Compassionate Communities program. After she passed away, her son Mark expressed his thanks for the social connection Helen was able to receive in her final years of life. Read more.

Congratulations to this week’s Champions of Care nominees:

• “On January 17th there was a snow day and many PSWs could not reach their clients. There was no public transportation, many cars stuck in the snow. PSW Elena Makaveeva walked to work and provided the service to all her clients, and even took care of other PSWs’ clients. Thank you Elena for you hard work and kindness.” – Yulia Ioffe
• “PSW Christine Haughton is professional and advocates for her clients needs. She has a sense of responsibility and reports any of the risk and safety events in a timely manner, to make sure the matters are addressed. Christine, thank you for being the eyes, the ears, the hands and the voice of one of the most frail and vulnerable sectors of our society.” – Muna Sheerin
• “Irene Shapiro has been extremely helpful and supportive of the Holocaust team case managers that work with her. Irene is very attentive to details; she takes into consideration every aspect of the client’s situation and spends time to understand the client’s perspective. Irene knows her clients and their families well; she communicates with them regularly, and she listens and demonstrates compassion and real care. Irene is also very supportive of the Case Managers, always taking our opinions into consideration as she tries her best to accommodate the client’s needs. We truly appreciate her approach, amazing attitude and great work. It would be incredibly hard to do our job without her. Thank you so much!” – Bogdana Kokovina
• “Shira Hershenfeld was the Case Manager for our parents. From the moment we met, she was kind, caring, and listened carefully to our parents who are Holocaust Survivors. Her compassion and understanding was always apparent. She worked tirelessly to provide them with as much service as was possible, since their incomes were very low. When COVID-19 arrived, she fought for us to be able to get private funding paid to the caregiver that we hired so that no other caregivers would come into the home. With this help, we were able to use the services of our private sleep-in caregiver and this truly helped to lift the financial burden a little. Shira is truly a lovely person; she’s efficient, and always prompt in returning calls and relaying information. We never felt like a case number with her, but as someone who genuinely had the best interests of our parents and your company in mind. She is a great asset to your organization and we feel very fortunate to have worked with her. Both our parents are now in Baycrest and so our wonderful relationship has ended. But, we just felt you needed to know how well she did her work and with grace and caring. Thank you again to Circle of Care Holocaust Fund for helping our survivor parents.” – Client’s daughters
• “Luisa Simmonds has been the PSW for my parents for five years. She is dedicated, competent, caring, involved, meticulous, and does everything with a smile. She goes above and beyond her duties because she truly cares about the people she is caring for. She is so compassionate and loving and is truly suitable for this work. Her cheery disposition and demeanour brighten everyone’s day and her clients can feel her warmth and enthusiasm. You are very fortunate to have her as your employee and we were very fortunate to have her taking care of our parents. She will be missed by all and her next clients will be very lucky to have her. I just felt that you needed to know how good she is. Thanks again for sending such a great person to look after our parents.” – Client’s family members
• “Sahra Ali is an amazing coordinator. She takes good care of us. Sahra always updates us with the latest schedule changes which makes our life much easier. We are thankful for Sahra and appreciate all the little things she does.” – Client’s spouse

Choosing water as your drink of choice is an easy and healthy way to stay hydrated without consuming any extra empty calories from sugar. Energy drinks, soft drinks, flavored coffees, and even 100% fruit juices contain high levels of sugar and often have little other nutritional value.

Quick Tip: Try keeping a reusable water bottle in your bag or car so you are ready to fill up and stay hydrated throughout the day!

MindShift CBT uses scientifically proven strategies based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). These strategies teach you how to relax, practice mindfulness, develop effective ways of thinking and manage anxiety. It is available to download on both iOS and Android (on your personal device).

Dr. Lesley Wiesenfeld, Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Sinai Health shares her perspective on navigating through COVID-19. Read more about what to do if you’re feeling lost, juggling children and work, or at a loss for how to address your mental health.

Slick, hard surfaces combined with moisture make the bathroom a risky place to have a fall. Over the last three months, more than 50% of bathroom falls among our clients led to harm. PSWs play an important role in ensuring bathrooms are safe by reporting their concerns to the office.

Missing Safety Equipment in Clients’ Homes

This month, two of our PSWs reported concerns that helped to reduce the risk of falls for two separate clients. On January 5, PSW Beverly Newell reported that a client did not have safety equipment in their bathroom. Beverly noticed that her client did not have a grab bar, bath chair, or non-slip bath mat and that the client had recently almost fallen. Similarly, On January 28, PSW Dorian Moses reported that the legs were loose on a client’s bath chair and that there was no non-slip bath mat. In both cases, thanks to the immediate and detailed reporting of our PSWs, the CSSs were able to follow up to ensure safety equipment was installed/added so that showers could resume safely.

Lessons Learned:

• Report safety concerns immediately, so they can be addressed.
• PSWs should call the office to report if the client does not have the correct equipment to shower safely. In most cases, the PSW will be directed to provide a sponge bath until safety equipment is in place.
• The risk of falls in the bathroom can be reduced with the use of grab bars, raised toilet seats, automatic night-lights, shower chairs and non-slip mats.