Member Update: COVID-19

Dear ,

Like you, we're very concerned about the supplies of PPE available to nurses and other fronline health providers across Ontario.

Today, we released an open letter to industy partners including construction, manufacturing, veteranary services, and dentistry, urging them to contribute existing supplies of PPE to the government's supply intiative Ontario Together

We are asking nurses like you to help spread this message on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin

Clarification on WeRPN Guidance for Foot Care Nurses

We have received some follow up questions regarding the footcare memo we released yesterday and would like to provide the following clarification:

As your professional association, we are here to provide advice and professional practice support for nurses across all sectors. The memo we issued yesterday regarding foot care is intended to serve as a recommendation to our members and should in no way be considered a directive.

As knowledgeable health professionals, we believe foot care nurses are well positioned to determine what care is considered essential for their patients. In making that decision and taking into account the vulnerabilities of the population you are serving, we urge you to consider how to minimize the risk to the people you care for. For nurses providing care in numerous multiple settings, we believe it is especially important to consider which footcare case is urgent, which can wait, and the personal protective equipment necessary to keep yourselves and your clients safe and reduce the risk of virus spread.

Our recommendation on PPE is that in cases where nurses are working with patients confirmed or suspected of having COVID-19, it is essential that they have access to N-95 masks to be able to perform safe care. In other less critical situations, at a minimum, nurses need access to surgical masks and other associated droplet precaution equipment.

Nurses who are members of WeRPN and make the informed decision to continue foot care will not experience any impact to their professional liability coverage.

Key Provincial Updates and Resources for Health Professionals

The Ministry of Health is accelerating activities to reduce the backlog of laboratory tests and increase provincial testing capacity by:

Establishing a provincial diagnostics coordination network immediately lead by Ontario Health to provide integrated coordination of resources, procurement and test routing;
Evaluating innovative testing approaches in the next 2 days; and
Actioning new capacity creation ideas by creating a provincially coordinated intake/assessment function separate from current delivery resources.

The Ministry has also announced plans to launch a volunteer website to mobilize available workforce capacity towards the provincial response to COVID-19 and match health care providers with opportunities in different regions. We will be sure to update our member as soon as that site goes live.

The government also announced additional measures for protecting residents in Long Term Care

The Chief Medical Officer of Health will also be releasing a new directive* for long-term care homes under the Long-Term Care Homes Act, 2007 that restricts residents from leaving a home for short visits with family and friends.
*to date the directive has not been released.

The Ministry has created new guidance on Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) Sites

Premier Doug Ford also announced that the province would be suspending time-of-use hydro rates for 45 days

For more information, we encourage you to visit the Ministry of Health and Public Health Ontario website

Key Federal Updates

Parties across the political spectrum convened today to discuss the federal bill that would bring a new aid package to Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more

For more information, we encourage you to visit the Government of Canada website.

Daily Reports

As of 10:30AM today, Ontario reported 573 confirmed cases, 8 resolved cases, 7 deaths and 10,074 currently under investigation with lab results pending.

Click Here to read the latest Ministry of Health Daily Report

**Please note, these reports are intended for health professionals only and we request that you not share this with the public.

In the News
Below are some key stories from today that may be of interest to our members:

We will continue to monitor this situation and keep you updated as more information becomes available. Thank you for the important work that you're doing and the sacrifices you're making to keep Ontarians safe. We appreciate everything that you're doing each and every day.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact Tiff Blair at tblair@werpn.com

Sincerely,

WeRPN Team