About this event:
Join us for RNAO’s next Health System Transformation (HST) webinar on Monday, Sept. 16 from 12 - 1:30 p.m. ET. as we discuss the intersection of housing, health and health care.
Ontario and Canada are in the midst of a housing crisis. The crisis is commonly framed and understood as a social and economic issue, but it's also a matter of health and wellbeing. Housing is a social determinant of health. It influences and is influenced by public policy, politics, education, income, ethnicity and race. Addressing our housing crisis is fundamental to improving health and reducing longstanding inequities in health.
This webinar will cover the broad policy and political causes of our housing crisis and the five actions that will get us the housing we need. The housing report, co-written by RNAO and coordinated by the Alliance for a Liveable Ontario (ALO), calls these the “five ways home”. Franz Hartmann, coordinator of ALO, will discuss the five broad policy responses necessary to solve our housing crisis.
Our webinar will also explore in greater detail the intersection of the housing crisis, vulnerable populations, and the health-care system. David McNeil, president and CEO of Health Sciences North, will talk about the role hospitals play – in terms of both in-patient services (i.e. beds) and ERs - in the context of this crisis and the need for partnerships to take precedence over institutional policy when caring for and discharging unhoused and tenuously housed patients.
Melonie Hopkins, transition manager at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), will talk about the challenge of finding housing solutions for complex patients with mental health issues and the work that is being done through CAMH to both develop supportive housing models and enable complex patients to transition to supportive housing.
Presenters:
- Franz Hartmann, coordinator, Alliance for a Liveable Ontario, PhD
- Melonie Hopkins, transition manager at CAMH, MA, MSW, RSW
- David McNeil, president and CEO of Health Sciences North, RN, PhD, RNAO past president
This webinar is part of RNAO’s free HST series. RNs, NPs, nursing students, employers and all others interested in health system transformation are welcome to attend.