At times we think that some of our heroes will live forever. Over the past two weeks, two of my heroes and women I learned so much from have passed away...
Elder abuse has certainly become top of mind in recent years, with the media reporting regularly on this issue. In fact, June 15 has been acknowledged as World Elder Abuse Day...
The other day I was interviewed for an article called "The Sandwich Generation" that was published in a number of newspapers across the country...
At times we think that some of our heroes will live forever. Over the past two weeks, two of my heroes and women I learned so much from have passed away. First, was Mary Barrett who was well known in the Montreal nursing community. Mary opened the first CEGEP nursing program, which marked the ...
Elder abuse has certainly become top of mind in recent years, with the media reporting regularly on this issue. In fact, June 15 has been acknowledged as World Elder Abuse Day. While seniors are statistically the least likely group to suffer violent crime, they are the most likely demographic to be abused by a family ...
The other day I was interviewed for an article called "The Sandwich Generation" that was published in a number of newspapers across the country. As most of you know (and many of you are personally experiencing), this refers to people who are caring for both children and aging, often ailing parents at the same time. ...
I have been blogging now for two years. While I am the CEO of VON Canada, a very large home and community care organization serving most of the provinces, I have stayed away from using this blog to raise issues related to how the home and community care (HCC) system operates across the country. I ...
October 1 marked National Seniors Day, an occasion for all Canadians to appreciate and celebrate seniors. Today, one in seven Canadians is 65 years of age or older and in about 25 years, nearly one in four Canadians will be a senior. With the aging of the large baby boomer cohort, the media is full of ...
The debut of the VON episode of Undercover Boss Canada was October 4, 2012. We had the opportunity to have a prescreening on Parliament Hill and were fortunate to have the event hosted by Senator James Cowan, along with Conservative MP Cathy McLeod, NDP MP Christine Moore, and Liberal MP Scott Brison. It is comforting ...
It isn’t every day that someone you don’t know gets to peek inside your closet and perhaps see a pile of dirty clothes you wish hadn’t been there. Or maybe you are in the process of selling your home and someone requested a rush showing without giving you the chance to ensure things were tidy. That’s ...
My husband has gone through the 15 prescribed radiation treatments. He had some business-related travel and we had some family travel, but we kept all of the appointments and worked around the travel to make sure that he got all the treatments. Post treatment, I saw some signs of concern that were only partially verbalized by ...
Did you know that the chances of having a mental illness in your lifetime are one in five? In fact, the percentage of Canadians who have a mental illness at any given time is just over 10%. According to research by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, mental illness costs the Canadian economy $51 ...
I used to do a fair amount of work in the Southern Africa region in the mid to late 80s, and also in the 90s as part of the WHO Collaborating Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital, which I developed and managed. I had not been to Africa for quite a while but continued to be ...
Judith Shamian was the President and CEO of the Victorian Order of Nurses (