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Designing for Muskoka? Visit www.davidsmuskoka.com The finest homes and cottages in Muskoka use David’s Audio Video David Johann of David’s Audio Video in Bracebridge is your A/V architect for: • In house design • Whole house audio, video & automation • Home Theatre • Lighting control • Guaranteed quality installation • Local service • Guaranteed best prices • HVAC Indoor climate control Home Automation with Control, Simplicity & Convenience: Colorado V Net, Crestron, Russound Video Lines: Sony, Panasonic, Samsung Audio Lines: NAD, Pioneer, Bose, Yamaha, Arcam, McIntosh, Paradigm, Totem Canada’s “Best Price” Guarantee Ad Cheque Policy... if you find the same product at a lower price, within 30 days, we’ll give you a cheque for the difference! Simplicity Control Convenience Guarantee David’s Muskoka Audio Video voted number one in Audio Video for eight years running... We listen to our clients and design systems that work, for them. In whole house design, we can incorporate simplicity in lighting, sound and video. This can all be conveniently tied in with alarm and heating systems. Many homes have too much clutter on the wall with light switches and dimmers. We can simply your life with one switch. A light switch which is attractively labeled and can have the same wallpaper and/or paint colour to match individual decor. We have affordable systems that can automatically... Turn on lights throughout the home... Open or close drapery... Set sound levels... Control heating and air conditioning... Monitor security cameras, all with complete simplicity. Complicated control is not our goal. Fine tuning a system that meets budget and matches needs, is very important to us. At David’s we choose our brands very carefully. We stand behind our installations and we only represent like-minded manufacturers and suppliers. www.davidsmuskoka.com We guarantee our service and we guarantee our competitive pricing. We have wireless and wired solutions. Every project is unique and we provide professional friendly staff from design to installation. There really is no place like home. I look forward to assisting you with your design needs. Sincerely, 705-645-4990. Bracebridge Audio/Video • Lighting • Home Theatre Owner of David’s Muskoka Audio Video
Muskoka’s nursing shortage Photograph: Don MacTavish Nurses Dorothea Tait and Jan Venturelli monitor some equipment in the obstetrics department at the South Muskoka Memorial Hospital Site. By Sandy Lockhart Muskoka has a shortage of nurses and it’s only going to get worse in the next five to 10 years. “There is absolutely a need in the community,” says Jean Broere, project manager of Muskoka Cares. According to statistics compiled by Muskoka Cares, a collective with interest in health care, there is a vacancy rate of 15 per cent for Registered Practical Nurses (RPN) and seven per cent for Registered Nurses (RN) in Muskoka. The overall vacancy for health service professionals in Muskoka, according to the survey was six per cent. “That is probably average for the province,” says Broere, but Muskoka’s nursing vacancies were high. To help deal with this shortage, the Muskoka Cares project applied in December for $500,000 in funding for a three-year project to implement several strategies to recruit and retain health care staff. “We need to start working now so we can fix the problem for the future,” she says, explaining that some strategies can be done without funding. In 2009, Muskoka Cares surveyed 23 health care organizations to gather the vacancy rate and other information to help Muskoka recruit and retain health care staff. “We did not include physicians and family health teams as we already know there is a shortage of physicians,” Broere says. “We needed to know exactly what was needed.” Broere believes recruiting more health care staff would improve the quality of health care. “If we have enough health care staff to fill all positions, the workload goes down, absenteeism improves and people are able to spend more time with the patients,” she says. “Now when there is a shortage of staff, they are tired and need a break.” Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare has 17 vacant nursing positions in the hospitals as of January 2010. Robert Hughes, acting chief human resources officer for the hospitals, breaks it down into four full-time, seven part-time, two temporary full-time, two part-time and two casual positions. Hughes says nurses working in parttime positions have scheduled part-time hours but can pick up extra shifts and calls to work full-time hours. With the hospital’s debt recovery plan, some layoffs are planned. “We hope we are able to mitigate job loss through our vacancies,” says Hughes, explaining if nursing positions are cut, those nurses could move into current vacancies. “I don’t think we will ever eat up all our vacancies.” Bev McFarlane, chief nursing officer for Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare, says if the hospital nurses didn’t have to work so many overtime hours, there would be less burnout. “A lot of our nurses really have an obligation to patients and say yes when they would rather not,” she says of them being called in to work overtime. McFarlane would like overtime to be the exception, not the rule. Filling these vacant positions would also save the hospitals money, as it would have to pay less overtime. She says attracting nurses is about recruitment and retention. “We don’t want them all to retire at 55,” says McFarlane. “We want their expertise and knowledge. How do you structure it so they are able to work past their first retirement opportunity?” Muskoka Cares is the result of eight organizations with interest in the health care field in Muskoka. When recognizing the shortage of healthcare staff, they joined together and applied for funding for a one-year pilot project to look at Muskoka’s situation. The Muskoka Cares Steering Committee is made up of representatives from Georgian College’s Muskoka Campus, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare Corporation, North Simcoe Muskoka Local Health Integration Network, North Simcoe Muskoka Workforce Labour Board, Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Nipissing University’s Muskoka Campus, Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and the District of Municipality of Muskoka. Muskoka’s 23 healthcare organizations employ 1,326 healthcare employees with about one third employed in acute care, one third in nursing homes and one third in community care and retirement homes. According to research findings, half of the positions were assisting positions (personal support workers, guest attendants, unregulated care providers). The other half were RNs (27 per cent), RPNs (13 per cent), allied professionals (10 per cent) and nurse practitioners (two per cent). Broere says they found that only 43 per cent of the positions were full time, 40 were part time and 17 per cent were temporary casual. Fifteen per cent of the employees held two or more healthcare jobs. While the whole province of Ontario and even all of Canada is facing a growing undersupply of healthcare employees, Muskoka will face the prob- www.whatsupmuskoka.com February 2010 5
Page 1 and 2: WHAT’S UP February 2010 MUSKOKA
Page 3: ON NOW! HURRY IN! RECORD BREAKING P
Page 7 and 8: The greenest paint available. Zero
Page 9 and 10: Muskoka Landowners change direction
Page 11: Olsson takes her message to Nunavut
Page 14 and 15: Live each day like it were your las
Page 16: JOHN CLEATOR, CFP Agent/Owner JOHN
Page 19 and 20: Making a difference in the communit
Page 22 and 23: WHAT’S UP MUSKOKA SPORTS Adrienne
Page 24 and 25: Continued from p. 23 Hockey League,
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