Ontario Nurses' Association Marks National Day of Mourning
TORONTO, April 28, 2014 /CNW/ - Ontario registered nurses (RNs) and allied health professionals will mark the National Day of Mourning today at events being held across the province.
Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) members and nursing student affiliates will join in honouring workers who have died, been injured or made ill as a result of their jobs.
"This is a particularly significant day for nurses to pause and remember," said ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN. "Nurses and their health care worker colleagues continue to be the target of workplace violence more often than any other profession, and they are on the front lines to care for those who have been sickened or injured at work."
Each year, hundreds of Canadians are killed or injured while at work – 977 workplace deaths were recorded in 2012 alone.
For ONA members, the National Day of Mourning is an occasion to specifically remember and honour Ontario registered nurses who have died because of their job. Tecla Linn, RN and Nelia Laroza, RN were sickened and died as a result of caring for SARS patients in Ontario in 2003. Lori Dupont, RN, was murdered while working in the recovery room of the Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor in 2005. Other nurses in the province have also died of workplace exposures.
Haslam-Stroud notes that "even one death is too many."
ONA members will attend events across Ontario today. In Toronto, ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud and Andy Summers, RN, Vice-President of ONA Region 3, will attend the ceremony at Larry Sefton Park (Bay and Hagerman Streets) at 12:00 noon. Province-wide events are listed on ONA's website (http://www.ona.org/news_details/DoM_2014.html).
ONA is the union representing 60,000 registered nurses and allied health professionals, as well as more than 14,000 nursing student affiliates providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.
Visit us at: www.ona.org; Facebook.com/OntarioNurses; Twitter.com/OntarioNurses
SOURCE: Ontario Nurses' Association
Ontario Nurses' Association:Sheree Bond, (416) 964-1979 ext.2430, cell: (416) 986-8240, [email protected]; Melanie Levenson, (416) 964-1979 ext. 2369, [email protected]
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