OHIP Changes to Service for Physiotherapy for Seniors August 1, 2013

A friend of mine, a Physiotherapy Assistant (PTA) along with numerous others with the same educational background will be out of work beginning on August 1st. 

I don't believe the majority of Ontario realizes why, and they need to!

She is self-employed, billing her hours to the Physiotherapist who she works under in one of Ontario's Long Term Care homes.  This means she won't be eligible for Employment Insurance when she is done. She cares about her clients - who are seniors in the seniors home she works at.  " I can always find another job, but what about these people...what will they do now."

So...what has happened that she and hundreds of others will be out of work starting on August 1st?  

On April 18, 2013, it was announced that:

"More Seniors to Benefit from Physiotherapy and Exercise"
"New Ontario Government Expanding Access to Care for Seniors"

These headlines are seen as "good news", but when you look closer into the details, they include a substantial cut in services to physiotherapy within long-term care homes.

Currently, residents of long term care homes can receive up to 100 visits a year within their residence.  They do not need to travel anywhere: staying within their own residence and not having to travel is a major thing for seniors who do not drive, are not ambulatory, or who don't have friends or family to drive them to physiotherapy appointments at clinics.

This is changing.  It's been difficult to find the specific information online, but it seems that physiotherapy visits within long term care facilities will only be for those who are in dire need of it, and then, it will be a maximum of 12 visits a year.  Anything beyond that, and they will need to pay for it themselves since OHIP will no longer be covering it, AND they will need to travel to a physiotherapy clinic.  Since many of these seniors no longer drive, this puts a strain on their friends and family, assuming they have people in their lives who are available, to drive them to and from appointments. 

My parents are not at the age or physical state to need to be in Long Term Care at the moment, but I feel for those families who these changes are affecting.  The decrease in service will inevitably lead to less mobility, and more hospital visits for many of these seniors.  Also, since many seniors will not be able to afford private physiotherapy costs, many of those currently employed as Physiotherapy Assistants are going to need to be looking for a new career. 

A few quick articles for you to take a browse through follow:

http://www.orilliapacket.com/2013/05/13/this-physio-keeps-me-alive
http://diablogue.org/2013/04/18/a-tangible-response-to-physiotherapy-cuts-the-province-finally-adds-community-capacity/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Physiotherapy+changes+blow+seniors/8274906/story.html

My friend was passing out the following petition to sign.  Feel free to print a copy, sign and have friends sign and send to your local MPP.

http://www.dpca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/May-1-2013-FINAL-version-PETITION-for-RH.pdf

We Have Our Passports!

We've been meaning to get our passports for a while.  We tried getting them last month.  Off we went, and all three of us were rejected!  Hubby and I needed new pics taken (they were too dark), and Natasha needed her "long form birth certificate". 

Turns out I had the long form birth certificate at home...it just doesn't say that on it.  Anywhere!  On the form itself it says "Notice of Live Birth". 

So, with that form in hand, and new pictures taken, off I went to the passport office again, sans hubby and daughter.  $211 later (wow, not cheap!), and we should all have our passports by the end of the month.

Now...where should we go?

~C

National Organ & Tissue Donor Awareness Week: Meet Alexa!

April 21- 27, 2013 is Canada's National Organ & Tissue Donor Awareness Week.

We have our own experiences with being on the transplant list in 2011, but right now, in light of Donor Awareness Week, I want to introduce you to Alexa!

Alexa (age 4)  has Citrullinemia and is waiting for a liver transplant.

Alexa is 4 years old.  Isn't she adorable!?  She is on the liver transplant waiting list here in Ontario.  Similar to OTC (what my boys were affected with, and I am a carrier of), she has a urea cycle disorder called Citrullinemia. This means that her family needs to ensure she eats a very low protein diet and take specialized medicines and amino acids to ensure that ammonia toxicity does not happen.

Ammonia toxicity kills brain cells, and can result in catastrophic neurological damage.  It can also result in death, but we aren't talking about that right now!

For Alexa, getting a new liver would mean no longer having to worry about normal childhood illnesses and viruses such as colds, flu, chicken pox, etc causing permanent damage to her brain.  She has had a number of hospitalizations needing specialized medicines to bring down the ammonia levels when she contracts what would normally be mild illnesses for children.

Alexa is a Toronto Maple Leafs fan!

Alexa is from Toronto (see her Maple Leafs jersey!) I met her mom Shanna for dinner one night in the fall when I was visiting Toronto.  We talked the night away about transplant issues, urea cycle disorders, and low protein diets among other things!

In Ontario, you can sign up to be a donor by registering with Be A Donor.ca.  Use my link here to register to support Alexa and in memory of our son Kyle.

https://beadonor.ca/cindy-babcock

To learn more about Alexa and her family, you can go to their blog:

http://moralesmoments.blogspot.ca/

Education Options We've Been Offered (Gifted vs French Immersion)

A couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call from the principal of another school in our area, wondering if our daughter might be interested in attending there next year.  She met the criteria for the gifted program, and she has a choice of staying within her own school and having a slightly adapted program, or switching schools into the gifted program.

The fact that she met the criteria was not a surprise to us.  Every teacher she has had over the years has commented that she probably fits into the "gifted" category.  My husband was in gifted as a kid, and I was always one point away from meeting the criteria, but instead, I skipped two grades (grade 1 and grade 8).

The gifted program in our city is very small.  It is currently one classroom of students ranging from grade 5 to grade 8.  They are sometimes broken up into grade level (5/6 vs 7/8), and for that reason there are 1.5 teachers designated towards this class. 

We went on a tour earlier this week, and I was blown away.  It seems fabulous.  Heck, *I* want to be in the class!  The 5/6 portion of the class only has 6 children.  One in grade 5 and the rest are in grade 6.  They were working on a Carmen San Diego type exercise. (None of the kids know Carmen San Diego, but the teacher being about my age knew that I would understand the reference.)

With world maps, atlases, and Netbooks on hand, the kids were working in pairs to figure out where they were going.  They had a list of about 15 countries, had to figure out where the countries were, then figure out what currency the country used, and then they had to convert a certain amount of the currency into Canadian dollars.  The teacher was helping one of the kids in writing down the answers for his work.

The class has some kids who are strictly "gifted", and others who meet the dual diagnosis of gifted and learning disabled.  You can be gifted in some areas, but learning disabled in others, which many people don't realize.

Our daughter joined one of the groups for about an hour working on this assignment.  She loved the class, and has decided she would like to switch to this school.

The one downfall to switching is that she will have to leave the French Immersion system as this program is only offered in English.  However, since my husband speaks French he can teach her.  Busing is provided, which is great, because if it wasn't offered we wouldn't be able to realistically get her to and from this school.

She could start at anytime, but I think we've decided to have her finish her year out, and have her start in September.

Time to Catch Up!

Apparently I havn't posted anything in nearly forever! Well, over three months anyway.

I'm busy with tax season right now, preparing and E-Filing tax returns on top of my other jobs.  Balancing everything is becoming a little bit of an issue, but so far I'm managing to not have any topple down!

I'm working 25 hours a week at the group home, an average of 4 or 5 hours a week with the food box program and another 4 or 5 hours a week with the Y Act Up program I'm facilitating.  I know all of that only adds up to the equivalent of a normal full time job, but with strange hours all over the place it seems like more.

I had challenged myself last year to read 50 books...I think I made it to 42, and this year I've only read 3 so far and we're already mid-March.  Oops! Maybe I'll get time to read more over the summer!

I keep having to go shopping for clothes with Natasha...she's been outgrowing everything at a crazy rate.  We've done 3 fairly substantial shopping trips between September and March.  Bought school clothes in September, and by Canadian Thanksgiving we had to rebuy the same pants a size bigger.  We've since had to purchase new pants a size bigger once again just a couple of weeks ago.  She outgrew her winter boots, and we've replaced them with a women's size 10!  And new runners in a size 8.5.  Did I mention she just turned 11 recently?

Now that I'm back on here, maybe I'll update a little bit more. :)

Cheers!

How to Make Your Kids NOT Believe in Santa!

Do you need some tricks to make sure your kids don't believe in Santa after this year?!  Sure you do! :) Ok, maybe you don't, but they might help you anyway.

All presents wrapped in the same wrapping paper!

Use the same wrapping paper.  I believe in using what I have. At Christmas, this might not always work out though, since using the same wrapping paper on presents from Santa and from mom & dad will lead to some smart questions! "Santa buys his wrapping paper at Shoppers Drug Mart and Costco too, Mommy?" Um...yes. Yes he does.


Your gift hiding spot is too easily found.  Uh oh. Your kids know where you hide the gifts! How do you explain that what they saw is from Santa and not from you when they saw the gifts in your closet on December 5?!

Same handwriting from Santa and Mom & Dad. Oops!

Use the same font/handwriting on gift tags.  Even if kids can't officially read yet, they can tell the difference between what looks similar and different.  All caps, same type of pen? Yep, that would be *my* mistake!  Try bringing some gift tags with you to your next coffee with a girlfriend and have them write out the ones from Santa.





Santa's favorite drink and snack.  Convince your kids that Santa's favorite drink/snack to leave out for him just happens to be the same as yours! Santa likes egg nog and potato chips and not milk and cookies? Yep! You have no idea how many school yard arguments over Santa's favorite snack have occurred due to this one!

Eating Santa's snack before putting out the presents.  You just ate those chips and eggnog, but havn't put the presents out yet. And, now you hear little feet coming downstairs.  Oops! Do you have crumbs on you?  Now Santa came and ate, but didn't leave any presents? Oh dear. You can see where this will lead!

Hope you enjoyed my tips!  To be honest, I've done all of these, but we have purposely not made a big deal of keeping who Santa is a secret.  If you do want to keep his identity a secret, maybe you can benefit from my mistakes!

Do you have any gaffes to add to the list?

50 Book Challenge - I'm Falling Behind!

I havn't updated any info on the #50BookChallenge since October!  It's quite possible I've forgotten about books I've read in the meantime, but I'm pretty sure I'm simply falling behind!

I took a new job at the end of October in addition to everything else, and even though it's only a few hours a week, it's definitely cut down on my reading time.

Here are the very few books I remember that I've read!
#36-38 The Shades of Grey Trilogy
#39 Left Neglected, by Lisa Genova (really liked this one!)

The next book on my list is The Power of Why, by Amanda Lang.

Do you think I will get to 50 before the end of the month??  I do have a week off at the end of the month, and although we'll be visiting a lot with family I hope to get some reading time in too!