Ethel Mead, Current Vice President

 

Ethel grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She came to Canada in 1944 when, after her first husband was torpedoed in the North Atlantic, she married a Canadian. Her first home in Canada was in Halifax, where she worked with the Canadian Seamen’s Union as communications director along with her husband, who was that union’s Vice-President for the Atlantic region. After the union was smashed, the family, now including two small daughters, moved to Toronto, where her third daughter was born. Following the death of her second husband in 1964, she began full-time studies at the University of Toronto, where she earned three degrees and went on to become a professor of English literature at Ryerson.

 

In her post-retirement years Ethel discovered and joined the Older Women’s Network, where she served on Council for a total of six years, two of them as co-chair. In 1992 she chaired an OWN committee which held a public forum, called “Home Alone” after the death of an 82-year-old member with a severe case of shingles who was discharged from acute care and left to fend for herself. The forum led to the formation of the Task Group on Transitional Care, a group of sixteen community organizations focused on the plight of patients already being discharged sicker and quicker from Toronto’s hospitals. The group lobbied with board and staff of all the Toronto area hospitals, with the Metro District Health Council and the Minister of Health.

 

In 1995 it morphed into the Getting Out of Hospital Coalition which sponsored an Ontario-wide conference bringing various community support workers together with hospital social workers and discharge planners. The conference fostered networking and discussion aimed at improving the transition of patients from hospital back into the Community.  It seemed a logical next step for Ethel to participate in the founding of what was then called the Metro Network for Community-based Long Term Care (now Care Watch Toronto).

 

 Ethel has served on the policy and planning committee, now called the board of directors of Care Watch, and chaired the steering committees for two of our big projects, the PhoneLine, which produced Behind Closed Doors and the Caregivers’ Needs project, which has just produced House-Bound. She is currently co-chair of the Ontario Coalition of Senior Citizens’ Organizations and a member of the administrative committee of the Ontario Health Coalition.

 

Ethel is an effective activist and has an outstanding record of accomplishment. Care Watch Toronto is fortunate to have her continued leadership.

Just when you are beginning to think that: maybe the leopard can change its spots, the senseless revolution is over, Ernest Ernie really does care about people, something happens to demonstrate that not much has really changed.

 

The latest event is the quiet announcement that nursing home fees are to go up by almost $220 a month. We heard that one senior caregiver, whose husband has Alzheimer’s disease, was informed of the change through a message on her answering machine. It comes to $2,640 a year. Not much maybe for some people but if you are a senior on a tight budget, it may be almost insurmountable. It will affect nearly 60,000 residents across Ontario.

 

Donna Rubin of the Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes, is quoted as saying that her group was seeking funding for more nursing care for patients and was hoping the resident per-diem would be increased by $25. In last month's budget. She was disappointed that the budget allocated less than $2 a day more, but now she is shocked that the government is shifting more of the financial burden on to the frail elderly and their families.

 

Speak to your M.P.P. Tell him or her what’s happening. The likelihood is that they have never heard of it. Write a letter to Mr. Eves. He probably hasn’t either. Most importantly, remember this when the election finally comes around. 

 

Fred Reynolds

Editor

Nursing Home Fees to Jump 15 Per Cent in August