Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to say thank you again to everyone. It's been an extreme pleasure to participate in the process today. RPNAO believes strongly in collaborative relationships. As we go into the future, that must be embedded within the framework of any approach, wo

Status of Women committee  It's hard for me to address from a personal perspective, or even from a professional perspective, some of the rural aspects, because I don't really live in a rural area. I live in an urban area, and I don't understand completely all of those particular things that really impact o

Status of Women committee  It could be all of them, yes.

Status of Women committee  Do you know why? It's because verbal abuse doesn't necessarily just come from the male population, and it doesn't come just from nursing staff to nurses. We're all in this together. Therefore, I didn't feel the need to point fingers.

Status of Women committee  I fully agreed. It is an issue that all the associations—OMA, RNAO, RPNAO—are definitely aware of, and discussions are happening. As for the best strategies to address it, I don't think we're there yet.

Status of Women committee  Those things are really systemic. They impact not only on the everyday things like economic security, but on our emotional health, our physical health, and that translates to our family members, not just our children, but our entire family members. Women will grapple with decisi

Status of Women committee  I don't know if I'll be able to address it in 35 seconds, but I'll certainly try. Thank you very much for those very kinds words. I do certainly agree that you have to be able to walk in those shoes to be able to understand perspective. I'm trying to keep it in context of the

Status of Women committee  It primarily extends to the lack of full-time employment that's available to the practical nurse in the province of Ontario. What is it related to? It's related to perspective. You will see cyclical patterns where some employers, based on research from the United States, which

Status of Women committee  From a nursing perspective, in terms of the 95% women in that population, should there be equal access—and more access—to full-time employment, it would lessen some of the systemic stressors that exist, such as child care, such as education, such as work-life balance.

Status of Women committee  I haven't actually accessed child care for a few years now, but when I was, it was approximately $300 a week, and that was with a subsidy.

Status of Women committee  No, ma'am.

Status of Women committee  I think it needs to be heavily ingrained into the culture of our health care system that there must be flexibility. I'm here today with you, a single mother of an 11-year-old boy. I need to be able to put my son into school, come here, and then go home. I still need to be able to

Status of Women committee  To the defence of employers within the health care system, I think honestly that they're stuck between a rock and hard place. If they address things, they're going to open up a can of worms and have a lot of problems that they may or may not have the tools to deal with. As for

Status of Women committee  From a personal perspective, it makes 120-degree difference. You actually are able to plan for your child's education. You're actually adequately able to plan for what you can do with your education if you have your sights set on something in terms of a five-year plan. I worked 1

Status of Women committee  A key thing you mentioned was women at home. Not very many women are at home. If you look around the table here, women are in the greater majority. I feel compelled to tell you a personal story. A family member was called by the babysitter organization to pick up his child beca