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National Post
11 minutes ago
- National Post
Nurse-to-Patient Ratios Save Lives and Reduce Staff Burnout, Says New Academic Study
Authors urge Ontario hospitals to implement safe staffing ratios THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events. Unlimited online access to National Post. National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE ARTICLES Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events. Unlimited online access to National Post. National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors TORONTO — A new academic study says mandating nurse-to-patient ratios would save lives, improve overall outcomes for patients, and alleviate the staffing crisis in Ontario's hospitals. Based on an extensive review of existing research on staffing levels in hospitals, in-depth interviews with many Ontario hospital nurses, and an examination of mandated nursing staffing standards in places like California, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Australia, the researchers recommend Ontario's hospitals adopt a similar policy to ensure safe staffing levels at all times. 'The evidence shows that nurse-patient ratios save lives,' said Dr. Jim Brophy, co-author of the study and a researcher affiliated with the University of Windsor. 'Assigning nurses a manageable workload ensures patients receive appropriate care, which in a high-stakes hospital environment can mean the difference between life and death.' Dr. Brophy said the evidence was overwhelming on the issue, with one study showing a seven per cent rise in death rates for every additional patient assigned to a nurse. He said another study from the U.K. showed that hospitals with the worst nurse staffing levels had 26 per cent higher death rates. Conversely, death rates declined in California's hospitals after nursing ratios came into effect in 2004. Nurse-patient ratios are generally associated with a positive impact on patient care, he said, being associated with 'lower levels of medical errors, decreased risk of infections, and lower readmission rates.' Dr. Margaret Keith, co-author of the study, said mandating nurse-patient ratios would address Ontario's nursing shortage. Between 2022 and 2024, nurse vacancy rates in the province shot up by 43 per cent. 'Ratios equate to safe staffing levels for nurses,' she said. 'Mandated ratios reduce injury rates and burnout, reduce the moral distress of not being able to provide optimum care, and thereby improve staff satisfaction and morale. Addressing these factors would tremendously improve the retention and recruitment problem in Ontario's hospitals.' Based on August 2025 data from The College of Nurses of Ontario, there are 16,437 licensed but non-practicing nurses in the province. Keith said Ontario would do well to emulate the Australian province of Victoria, where mandated staffing ratios resulted in a 24 per cent increase in the nursing workforce with more than 7,000 inactive nurses resuming practice. 'It's an incredible story that shows it is possible to fix the health care staffing crisis,' she said. 'We know that attrition rates are very high in Ontario, and this solution could help stem the bleeding.' Recently, other provincial governments in Canada have taken initiative on minimum nurse staffing levels with employers in British Columbia and Nova Scotia obligated to adhere to newly enforced standards. In Manitoba, the government, employers, and the unions have signed a letter of intent to study the matter. Rachel Fleming, a registered practical nurse and member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees' (CUPE) Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE), says inadequate staffing ratios are taking a devastating toll — not only on patient care but also on the emotional well-being of nurses. 'Every day, we're being forced to make choices that go against everything we believe as caregivers,' said Fleming. 'When you can't give medication on time, when a patient goes without a bath or the comfort of someone simply listening to them, when you can't even answer a call bell because you're torn between other patients in desperate need—it breaks your spirit. I know so many incredible nurses who walked away not because they stopped caring, but because the pain of not being able to care properly became unbearable.' According to the authors of the report, nursing ratios also have the potential to save costs by decreasing reliance on private agency staff, reducing avoidable readmissions, as well as workplace injuries and illnesses. In California, workplace injuries reduced by 32 per cent after the introduction of nursing ratios while hospitals in Pennsylvania with lower staff burnout rates had 6,200 fewer infections for annual cost-savings of up to $68 million. OCHU-CUPE will be proposing nurse-patient ratios for 50,000 hospital workers in central bargaining with the Ontario Hospital Association next month. However, the union is wary of the hospitals' opposition to the idea. 'Hospital management in the past rejected nurse-patient ratios, despite evidence that these ratios save lives and improve health outcomes for patients, because they restrict their ability to understaff – a reality forced on them by Ontario's chronic underfunding of our hospitals,' said Michael Hurley, president of OCHU-CUPE. 'Ratios will bring thousands of nurses who have left the profession in despair back to work. Adopting ratios in bargaining will push the provincial government to fund and staff its hospitals properly. For patients and for nurses, it is time for this fundamental change.' Last year, the Ontario PC MPPs voted against an NDP bill to legislate nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals. The bill was reintroduced by the NDP in May 2025 but has yet to be debated. View source version on For more information, contact: Zee Noorsumar, CUPE Communications
CTV News
41 minutes ago
- CTV News
All N.S. workplaces will need harassment policies by September
Nova Scotia is requiring workplaces to have harassment policies. (Source: Province of Nova Scotia) All Nova Scotia workplaces will need policies to respond to physical and psychological harassment by Sept. 1. The new regulations, which fall under the Stronger Workplaces for Nova Scotia Act, came about following a 2024 review of the workers' compensation system. The new regulations also responded to a 2022 report by the Office of Equity and Anti-Racism, which found 'systemic issues of racism, inequity and lack of psychological safety in many workplaces,' according to a news release from the province. 'The previous Occupational Health and Safety Act and regulations only considered physical injuries in the workplace, leaving out psychological injuries like harassment,' the province says. Written harassment prevention policies must include: expectations how to report concerns how complaints will be investigated All policies will need to be reviewed at least every three years. 'Everyone deserves to feel safe at work – physically and psychologically,' said Nolan Young, minister of Labour, Skills and Immigration, in the release. 'These new rules will help employers take clear, proactive steps to prevent and address harassment, support their teams and build stronger, safer workplaces for everyone.' The Workers' Compensation Board Nova Scotia says there were 194 psychological workplace injuries reported in 2024, which was up 150 from three years ago. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
National Post
4 hours ago
- National Post
Sangoma Leverages AWS to Deliver Flexible, Secure UCaaS and Contact Center Services
Article content MARKHAM, Ontario — Sangoma Technologies Corporation (TSX: STC; Nasdaq: SANG) ('Sangoma'), a trusted industry leader offering businesses a choice of on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid Communications as a Service solutions, announced today its expanded use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver scalable, secure, and unified cloud communications solutions to customers across industries. By leveraging a robust set of AWS services—including Amazon EKS, EC2, RDS, ElastiCache, ECR, S3, Route 53, and AWS Secrets Manager—Sangoma enables businesses to run its Cloud UCaaS platform (Business Voice) and advanced Contact Center solutions with high availability, reliability, and agility. Article content Article content This strategic implementation allows organizations to consolidate communications under a single provider while benefiting from the performance and stability of a cloud-native infrastructure. Article content 'Our customers want simplicity and performance without compromise,' said Charles Salameh, CEO of Sangoma. 'With our services powered by AWS, businesses are able to consolidate their communications needs with one trusted provider – on highly reliable cloud infrastructure. By building on AWS, we're delivering a secure, scalable platform that's purpose-built for the future. This collaboration serves as an example for how Sangoma can bring integrated, cloud-native solutions to mid-sized enterprises—setting a new standard for modern communications.' Article content Two organizations exemplifying the value of this solution are a large healthcare provider supporting remote patient coordination, and a nationally recognized breakfast restaurant chain with hundreds of locations. Both companies use Sangoma's UCaaS and Contact Center solutions on AWS to keep communications clear, teams connected, and day-to-day operations dependable. Article content The large home healthcare provider improved patient care by keeping distributed teams connected with AWS-powered 99.99% uptime and protecting sensitive data with HIPAA-compliant practices. Article content The national breakfast restaurant chain uses the Sangoma platform on AWS at its headquarters to support better guest services and simplify operations. The solution provides clear calls, quick setup, disaster readiness, and reliable communication during busy hours. Article content 'Sangoma's implementation of AWS helps organizations modernize communications, reduce costs, and run operations with confidence,' said Steve Teitelbaum, Head of Telco for North America at AWS. 'We're proud to support Sangoma's mission to bring flexible, scalable communications to companies across industries so they can focus more on core business operations.' Article content With AWS powering its services, Sangoma provides global scalability, enterprise-grade security, and easy integration, empowering essential communications for businesses of all sizes. Key AWS services in use include: Article content Amazon EKS & EC2 for container orchestration and elastic compute Amazon RDS & S3 for secure, scalable data storage Amazon ElastiCache & Route 53 for performance and global failover AWS ECR & Secrets Manager for DevOps efficiency and data protection Article content As more businesses move to cloud-first strategies, Sangoma's implementation of AWS services stands as a model for how technology providers can deliver unified, mission-critical solutions that grow with each customer's needs. Article content About Sangoma: Sangoma (TSX: STC; Nasdaq: SANG) is a leading business communications platform provider with solutions that include its award-winning UCaaS, CCaaS, CPaaS, and Trunking technologies. The enterprise-grade communications suite is developed in-house; available for cloud, hybrid, or on-premises deployments. Additionally, Sangoma's integrated approach provides managed services for connectivity, network, and security. A trusted communications partner with over 40 years on the market, Sangoma has over 2.7 million UC seats across a diversified base of over 100,000 customers. Sangoma has been recognized for ten years running in the Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant. As the primary developer and sponsor of the open-source Asterisk and FreePBX projects, Sangoma is determined to drive innovation in communication technology. For more information, visit Article content About AWS: Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management from 108 Availability Zones within 34 geographic regions, with announced plans for 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Mexico, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content Article content
