Tag: Highlights

Lambton Shield article published August 31, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Editorial Staff, Lambton Shield Patients in Sarnia Lambton who have been pre-identified as frequent 911 callers and Emergency Department patients, are now able to access proactive, non-emergency care through the Community Paramedicine Program. The pilot program, expected to run until March 2018, is the result of a partnership between Bluewater Health and Lambton County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) with funding provided by the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (ESC LHIN). The pilot also includes strong collaboration with primary care as well as home and community care to ensure that patients receive the right level of care for their individual needs. Using a proactive approach, paramedics who have received additional training, are equipped to provide care for patients who have needs that do not require a trip to the hospital Emergency Department. The Community Paramedicine Program will primarily impact people who may have mental health, geriatric or complex chronic diseases and/or those people who have difficulty accessing healthcare. The program began on August 7 and the Community Paramedics are currently supporting 12 high-user patients. “The Rapids Family Health Team is pleased to partner with the new Community Paramedic Program,” says Lynn Laidler, executive director of the Rapids Family Health Team. “We feel this is a great opportunity to better serve our patients, allow them to stay safely in their own homes longer and reduce visits to the local Emergency Room.” Steve Pancino, manager of Emergency Medical Services for the County of Lambton, has seen this type of program succeed in other communities, “We anticipate the Community Paramedicine program will see similar reductions in 911 usage, hospital ED visits and improved patient outcomes.” According to Laurie Zimmer, Bluewater Health vice president of Operations, “The Community Paramedicine Programs is an example of how we can work together as healthcare partners to ensure that patients are able to get the right care, at the right time, by the right provider, in the right setting.” Click here to access the Lambton Shield article.

The Petrolia Topic article published August 22, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Melissa Shilz, Postmedia Network Hot summer months can spell trouble for those suffering from breathing difficulties, and the Central Lambton Family Health Team wanted to do something to help. They began their monthly Lung Health Education Program in July. Certified Respiratory Educator Nicole Pasut holds informal discussions and aims to show people who may have breathing difficulties how to self-manage it through exercise, breathing techniques and correct use of their inhaler in order to avoid future visits to the emergency room. Pasut said she began running the program at the Legion about five years ago, but it has since moved into the Family Health Team Facility. In Petrolia, there isn’t anything else available when it comes to respiratory health besides what they get from their doctor, so having an accessible resource is important in the community. Executive Director Sarah Milner said since the clinic doesn’t have funding for a respiratory therapist, having Pasut come in from Grand Bend is a key partnership for the patients and their wellness. “It’s different from what the doctor can provide…they are specialized and can gear the conversation to each client or patient,” Milner said. “There’s no time limit with them.” Pasut said the session is open to anyone who is interested in learning more, noting that there can also be open discussion between herself and a patient’s family doctor to ensure necessary treatment is being received. “Anyone with any sort of issues can come and see us,” Pasut said. “They’ve been happy that we’re here in Petrolia coming to them.” Each session looks at different topics, and Pasut said they are looking to adapt the program to what suits the needs of those attending. They work with each person to create action plans and health goals to work towards improving their everyday health. “Everyone learns differently,” she said, noting that they are sending out surveys to get more feedback about the team. Pasut said the program has also partnered with Archways, so those interested in getting more motivation to exercise can sign up to do so at their facility. She stresses to the clients that working certain muscles will make them more efficient, making the rest of the body better at using the air that your lungs bring in. They also hold weekly exercise sessions on Tuesdays at New Life Assembly Church. “I’m hoping that physically being here on site will get more conversation going,” Pasut said. “I know there’s a lot of people having issues…the industry in this area and in Sarnia plays a huge role with a lot of the clients that we see.” Milner said showing individuals how to self-manage their breathing difficulties is a key aspect of what they want to do. Being at the clinic also means those who attend can be connected to other resources that could help them in the future. “Those are tools that people can have to empower themselves and better their own health,” she said. “We’re really fortunate to have the team and especially the expertise…without them we wouldn’t be able to provide that here in the community.” Interested in attending? Sessions are held every second Wednesday of the month from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. mschilz@postmedia.com Click here to access The Petrolia Topic article.

St. Catharines Standard article published August 9, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Cheryl Clock, St. Catharines Standard The women follow a narrow dirt path into a community of towering white pine trees. The pin-straight trunks, bare lower to the ground, erupt like green fireworks exploding into a blue sky. The group is slow, deliberate, quiet. A few minutes ago, they noticed a mother deer and her fawn, peering motionless, ears tall, at them from not too far away. Their footsteps are hushed by years and years of fallen browned needles. They stop. Melissa Bollinger Seiling, their forest therapy guide, explains the first of several exercises – called invitations — that they will participate in tonight to calm the busyness of their thoughts and soothe the general chaos that is life. All the everyday stuff that barrages our minds much like being pelted with hail. Work. Kids. Family. Bills. The list is long. They will practice being mindful. Being present. Their thoughts will remain here, grounded in the woods. Forest therapy has its roots in Japan, where back in 1982 the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries called it Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing. It’s not hiking but more about taking in the atmosphere of the forest. In general, forest bathing is said to have many health benefits: a lower heart rate and blood pressure, improved immune system, less stress hormones and overall feeling well. The practice has spread worldwide. Training was introduced to Canada last year by the California-based Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs. The organization provides an eight-day training course followed by a six-month apprenticeship where beginners are mentored as they guide groups of people. It has trained 25 guides in Canada, 100 worldwide in 15 countries. Bollinger Seiling is a registered social worker who counsels people in her clinical practice at the Welland McMaster Family Health Team. She also takes some patients into the woods, in small groups. They might be living with mild anxiety and depression. Grief and loss. Stress. Many are overwhelmed by the unrelenting, inescapable connectedness of life with technology. The forest is part of their healing journey. Other times, like tonight, she offers private sessions to small groups of people intrigued by the idea of being mindful under a canopy of trees. In the woods, Bollinger Seiling is not a counsellor. “The forest is the therapist,” she says. “The guide is the door.” She asks the group, paused in the heart of the pines, to be aware of their senses. To listen, turn to face another direction, then listen more. To smell. Even, to taste the air. In her words: “To really bathe in your senses.” Their eyes are closed. She suggests to the women: “Pretend it’s the very first time you open your eyes here.” Afterwards, they sit in a circle and pass around a stick, signifying whose turn it is to talk about the experience. The only rule: speak and listen from the heart. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt the air like that,” says one woman. “The breeze was calming.” Another woman thought about the trees. How many other people have walked under their branches. LeeAnn Pocknell, a 46-year-old registered nurse, talks about hearing sounds that she otherwise would not have noticed. The wind, trees, birds, and hum of cars. “At a different time, I would have experienced silence,” she says. He thoughts would have been too loud. Too distracting. “It was like an awakening. It was awesome.” They will be in the woods at Short Hills Provincial Park for three hours. Sunlight will fade to dusk. A few lingering mosquitoes will dance in the breeze. Unlike the world beyond, there are no goals that must be achieved in the woods. No success or failure. No target destination. They will end their journey by sitting on the rocky shoreline of a creek, sipping tea infused with cedar and spruce needles in small glass cups, and talking about the experience. They discuss how they feel safe in the forest. Even vulnerable, but in a good way. “We’re all on the same journey,” says Tina Lanzillotta, 40. “In the forest, we bond together.” Melissa Bollinger Seiling has been wandering through the woods since she was a young girl growing up on a farm in Minnesota. Her playground was a state forest that backed onto a neighbour’s farm. “It went on and on and on,” she says. She could head off in the morning with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, water and a granola bar — maybe with a girl friend or maybe by herself — and spend the day amongst the trees with no specific destination. She climbed over rocks. Discovered new streams. Followed trails made by cows and deer. It was about being free and adventurous. Sometimes she pretended that she and her friend were the last two people left on Earth. In the winter, she hooked up a sled to her Norwegian Elkhounds and journeyed across the expanse of snow-covered field, imagining she was on the Arctic tundra. Her family hiked trails at the nearby Whitewater State Park, where the river cut deep ravines into the bedrock and created stunning bluffs of limestone. As a teenager, she found peace wandering the trails. “It’s where I felt at home. Where I felt myself,” she says. “Being outdoors has always been my touchstone.” Near the farm, there was an old walnut tree with a hollow in its trunk. In it, she left hand-written notes. The tree was her natural therapist, a friend who listened, without offering advice, and who held on to her teenage musings so she could feel free. Lightened. One spring, she discovered a robin family had made its nest in the hollow. Always a poetic, admittedly dramatic girl (she is laughing at herself as she tells this story), she immediately imagined a profound symbolism. “New things can be built on top of pain and secrets,” she says. Indeed, she has always felt a special kinship with trees. And yet, there was a time in her life without trees. After university, she lived in Manhatten, then in the Bronx with her husband. “We felt like trapped animals,” she says. Desperate to escape, they’d ride the train north to Bear Mountain State Park and other spaces with open sky and trees. She has hiked and canoed backcountry, in places like Algonquin, Killarney and Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. It was after a stay in Germany, returning to Canada, that her need to connect with nature deepened. By chance, she had learned about forest therapy and enrolled in the program. Last year, she introduced it to her social work practice in Welland. Indeed, studies have shown that forest bathing is good medicine. In one study done by researchers from Chiba University in Japan, 280 people had turns walking in and viewing both a forest and city scape. The results were clear. The forest environments lowered cortisol in their saliva, an indicator of reduced stress. Pulse rate and blood pressure was also lower in the forests. There was greater parasympathetic nerve activity which regulates everyday body processes such as digestion. And lower sympathetic nerve activity, which activates our fight or flight response in times of crisis. In the forest, people have a different relationship with their brain, she says. Rumination – repeatedly cycling through negative and worrying thoughts – stops or diminishes. People have described it as having a “vacation” from their brains. There is also great symbolism that can give meaning and explanation to different experiences in people’s lives. One woman in another group had been unable to grieve the death of her husband until she found two trees, one living and one dead, together in the woods. Seeing life and death together, as so often happens in the woods, she was able to cry in a good way. And heal. “Taking in what is reflected in nature is very healing,” she says. “It reflects back if we’re open to it, what’s going on internally in us.” A tree clinging to the side of a rock might help a person find inner strength. A woman from another group sat by a stream and watched a bubble flow away and disappear. She was able to let go of something troubling her in life. Sometimes watching a leaf flow downstream helps in the same way, says Bollinger Seiling. During one exercise, the women meander down a path, through the woods, noticing everything that moves around them. In another, Bollinger Seiling asks them to find a tree, introduce themselves and listen in case it has something important to say. It might sound silly, she says. But it has often been a moving, powerful experience for people. Some people have had conversations with their tree that they could only have with a close friend. People have cried with their tree. Touched its bark. Felt its strength. LeeAnn’s tree clings to the side of an embankment by the creek. She noticed it’s enormity and appreciated how its exposed tangle of moss-covered roots kept it secured to the earth. “I feel like I was breathing in the life of the tree,” she says. She wrapped her arms as far as she could around it’s truck and pressed her cheek to its bark. “I could feel my body breathe in and out. “It was spectacular. “I was breathing in the tree. Like I was absolutely, 100 per cent connected to something else just as alive as I am.” Cclock@postmedia.com  Niagara Nature and Forest Therapy For more information on forest therapy and Melissa Bollinger Seiling, visit her website at www.nnft.ca Click here to access the St. Catharines Standard article.

Bancroft This Week article published August 3, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Sarah Sobanski, Bancroft This Week North Hastings Hospital is celebrating the first graduating class of its pulmonary rehabilitation program — and the program’s continuation. The class of under 10 participants — referred to the program from area health professionals — all improved their quality of life and physical abilities. Physical test scores from a six minute walk test improved 15.4 per cent, with participants walking an extra two to 90 meters further than when they started. More than two thirds of participants reported an improvement in their general health and anxiety/depression. The same amount saw a 20 per cent improvement to their COPD. “We wanted to get this going because there’s a big need for people with [Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease] and pulmonary issues,” said physiotherapist with the program Melanie Dalley. “There’s a lot of incidences of COPD in the area and it’s a big concern with the emergency because it’s a lot of what they see in the emergency — so definitely something that’s being needed.” Quinte Health Care North Hastings and the Bancroft Family Health Team first worked together to bring the  program to the area in May. Respiratory therapist Lysanne Burnett, kinesiologist Alex Boyle, registered nurse Tammy Ives and Dalley monitor the program’s participants. It’s in the same room as the cardiac rehabilitation program, which began in 2015. Funding for it has now been extended, following the successful pilot. It will run four times a year with patients attending the physiotherapy room in the hospital twice a week for eight weeks. Dalley said having a pulmonary rehabilitation program in addition to the cardiac rehabilitation program is important because it’s in high demand. “About four per cent of people have access to pulmonary rehab when it should be accessible to everybody,” said Dalley. “This is a pretty big deal because people don’t have access to it and we’ve got it in Bancroft.” One of the main focuses of the program is exercise. Participants do weight training, cardiovascular exercise and resistance training. “When you get short of breath you don’t want to exercise because you just can’t breathe and so you end up getting in this really bad cycle of can’t breathe, stop moving. Now that I’m stopping moving I really can’t breathe,” said Dalley. “It just keeps getting worse and worse. The whole point of this is to stop the cycle.” Dalley explained maintaining a regular workout routine and staying physically fit helps the body use oxygen more efficiently. The program also focuses on breathing techniques, energy conservation — such as knowing your body’s schedule and when you get tired to plan accordingly — and education about the disease and the medications used to treat it. She said the better people understand what’s happening to them, the easier it is to slow the progression of pulmonary illnesses and CODP. “A lot of people think, ‘I can’t breathe I better run to the hospital,’ and often times you can learn some techniques that you can do at home that can actually help to control your shortness of breath and you may not need to get to the hospital.” Bancroft This Week attended the last class in the program July 27 to see how the participants were fairing. Each said they had improved. “I just think it’s a really good thing,” said participant Gail Robinson. “There are lots of people who need it and haven’t had it. There are lots of people who have health issues, probably lots of them have breathing issues.” Tony Youdale also found the program “very helpful” and said it was good for him to keep moving. He said he’s 81 and he wants to combat “things starting to slow down.” The next program will begin in September. Dalley said anyone wanting to attend the program should talk to his or her family doctor to be referred. Anyone looking for more information or to be referred can also call Tammy Ives at the Bancroft Family Health Team: 613-332-1565 ex. 242. “I think it’s been needed for a long time. It’s one of those things its really hard to get funding for any of these types of programs even though the literature is there to say they’re just as effective or more effective than just basically giving medication and treating it as a primary prevention. This is treating people before it happens,” said Dalley. “It’s one of those things that’s been proven over and over and over.” Click here to access the Bancroft This Week article.

St. Catharines Standard article published July 28, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Cheryl Clock, St. Catharines Standard It was some 30 years ago that Dr. Brian Kerley, then a new family doctor in St. Catharines, started working shifts in the emergency department at the old Hotel Dieu Hospital on Ontario Street. At that time, 1985, the hospital had just opened a new oncology clinic. Before that, the closest treatment centre for people living with cancer was Henderson General Hospital in Hamilton, now the Juravinski. The clinic was a welcome relief for people, an advancement in care that allowed them to receive chemotherapy in their own community, closer to home. It wasn’t long before Kerley and the late Dr. Heime Geffen were troubled by the growing number of cancer patients showing up in the ER with uncontrolled pain. He had received some instruction in medical school about palliative care but he largely felt ill-equipped to give people the comfort they were needing. They were in immense physical pain, constipated, nauseated and vomiting, and also enduring a deep emotional and spiritual agony. “People were dying with unrelieved pain,” he says. “There was suffering. You’d see people suffering.” At the time, palliative care wasn’t well integrated into cancer care, he says. When active treatment was no longer an option, when a cure was no longer possible, there were no palliative care physicians to tend to a person’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs. No one to offer quality palliative end-of-life care. It wasn’t until 1993 when three St. Catharines nurses, distressed by the circumstances under which people were dying in the community, gave life to Hospice Niagara by establishing a visiting volunteer program to provide care, support and dignity to people who were at the end of their lives. Three years later, in 1996, a specialized 11-bed palliative care ward opened at the Dieu — under Kerley’s leadership. The goal was to manage a person’s pain and other symptoms and get them back home. Then in 2007, Hospice Niagara opened its 10-bed residential hospice, The Stabler Centre in St. Catharines. Kerley has been its medical director since the start. A year later, McNally House Hospice opened in Grimsby to provide six beds for people living with a terminal illness in Grimsby, Lincoln and West Lincoln. But back when Kerley was in the ER, there was none of that. And oncology patients were showing up on his doorstep, in unmanageable pain. As a doctor, indeed as a human being, he needed to do something more. As a medical resident, he had met Dr. Elizabeth Latimer at Hamilton General. She was a year ahead of him. Latimer became passionate about palliative care and Kerley passionate about learning from her. Latimer, who died in 2012, is now considered a Canadian pioneer in the field of palliative care medicine. She was the first palliative care physician at Henderson General. What he learned from her and others to follow was “simple stuff” that had a huge impact on people’s lives. How to resolve bowel problems. Relieve vomiting. And the biggest revelation, albeit not without controversy, that at or near the end of someone’s life there really is no maximum dose of morphine and other opioids. It all came as a welcome realization: “People don’t need to suffer with pain.” These days, Kerley is the teacher. As a physician with the Niagara North Family Health Team in St. Catharines and medical director at The Stabler Centre, he divides his practice between family medicine and palliative care. He sees residents at the centre who are in their last days of life. And he sees people as outpatients, offering consultations. A good death is a journey made with dignity, he says. One where people are comfortable, cared for and safe. In many cases, surrounded by people who love them. It begins with pain and symptom management — physical pain is eased, people can breathe, their bowels work, and nausea and vomiting is controlled. People hold many misconceptions about death, he says. That it will be painful, a struggle to breathe, that they will choke or suffocate. Open conversations are encouraged. “If asked, most people who are dying want to talk about it,” he says. They want to talk about their fears. About details such as their care, place of death, funeral, will. All that. “But many physicians are notoriously, historically reluctant to have those conversations,” he says. “People need to be listened to. They need to be able to tell their story.” When Kerley meets a person, he often prompts them: “Tell me about yourself.” It’s about understanding the person, beyond the illness. “What’s your journey been like? Not just your illness journey, but your life journey. “What do I need to know about you, to maximize the quality of your last days. “It’s whole-person care.” He is guided by many palliative role models. One of them is Dr. Harvey Chochinov, who pioneered Dignity Therapy to address the reason’s behind a dying patient’s emotional distress. Patients can record meaningful aspects of their lives to leave something behind with their loved ones. Often people will find solace in reviewing their life. “How will the planet be a different place because you were in it?” says Kerley. “People need to know their life had meaning.” Even at the end of life, there is still time to live. At the centre, residents have been able to have their thoughts and memories written or recorded by video or audio. Their legacy story told. There has been a wedding, a hospice resident was married at the centre. A couple was able to celebrate their wedding anniversary in a therapy tub with a glass of champagne. Another family hosted a barbecue on Mother’s Day in honour of their wife and mother, and invited families of other residents to attend. Musicians have listened to their favourite music. An accomplished artist wanted to be surrounded by his artwork when he died. Indeed, whenever Kerley instructs a group of final-year medical students about palliative care, he begins with the video, Dying for Care, produced in partnership with Quality End-of-Life Care Coalition of Canada. It explores the attitudes about death and dying in the health care system and how it can impact a person’s end-of-life experience. One doctor shares a story of feeling less-than-adequate, many years ago, when faced with a man suffering from immense pain due to metastatic colon cancer. He refused to increase the man’s dose of morphine because he didn’t want him to become addicted. The man stood up and began to cry. He told the doctor: “I hope one day, as physicians, you can better look after us.” And he walked out of the office. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU4_DKTMfUQ Video source: Pallium Canada For Kerley, palliative care is a calling. It’s not about death, but about helping people to live until they die. It’s about relieving pain and suffering. About human interactions, however short. “It’s the essence of being a physician,” he says. “It’s the job I feel I was called to do,” he says. “To help people to be as comfortable and alert as they can be to complete the work they need to complete at the end of their life.” It’s often a time when he sees people at their best. Their strength of character. The relationships with family. The focus they bring to life. “It’s a privilege to be invited in to be a part of that.” cclock@postmedia.com Click here to access the St. Catharines Standard article.