Webinar Series: COVID19 and long-term care - building health justice in Canada and in Europe

Webinar Series: COVID19 and long-term care - building health justice in Canada and in Europe

Join us for a 4-part webinar series organized jointly by PHM Europe, PHM Canada, CUPE and the European Health Network that explores the increasing commercialization and privatization of the long-term care industry in North America and Europe.

Over 3 sessions, academics, activists and front line workers will discuss the impacts of this trend on our politics, the working conditions of these facilities and the lives of seniors living in these centres. The final session will be devoted to exploring these topics in greater depth through group discussions.

Simultaneous translation available for: English, French, Italian and Dutch

Please subscribe directly per session to be sure you get the zoomlink!
Session 1
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Yl_3aL5KRHWQV-MqCwfETA
Session 2
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YjcDCJbRSNOnb6b2c_jNRA
Session 3
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LyeyIXTBSsaKIc8CC_rbYQ
Session 4
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAqd--upzwrEt2WVUemG1MC2gShO6OiTg7M?fbclid=IwAR1Rbf0wL6R3NeGKUKLD8m-co9aeSP5rkI99yD2vgUdhYplSPLrYXQr5UZk

More information on speakers is to be found in the Speakers Bios here:
https://docs.google.com/.../1Sw9GEph2s2nI9yMoQYpK.../edit...

Follow us also on the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1086938295094284

Be sure to double check the timetable and your timezone: The sessions will take place in the morning (11h30 or 12h30) in Canada and the evening (17h30 or 18h30) in Europe.

The webinar is organized with the support of Solidaris (BE), la Centrale nationale des employés (BE), the Confédération des syndicats chrétiens ( BE), the Syndicat des employés, techniciens et cadres (BE), the Mutualité Chrétienne (BE) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees CUPE (Canada).

Session 1 - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - Impact of privatization and austerity on long-term care
Time: 12h30-14h00 Montreal/18h30-20h00 Brussels and Milan
Host: Hanne Bosselaers (BE)
Translations: English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch

• Commercialization of long-term care: Ilona Delouette (France)
  Ilona Delouette has PhD in economics at the University of Lille at the CLERSE. She wrote a thesis in political economy on the funding of the loss of autonomy in France and was particularly interested in the processes that led to exclusion from Social Security and privatization. Read here a recent article of hers

• EU policy prescriptions and austerity measures in healthcare and long-term care: Sabina Stan (Ireland)
  Sabina Stan is Assistant Professor in Sociology and Anthropology in the School of Nursing and Human Sciences, DCU, Ireland. She has conducted research on healthcare reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, European east-west migration, cross-border patient mobility in Europe, unevenness in the European healthcare space, and collective action in response to healthcare privatisation and austerity policies in Europe.
  More info on Sabina Stan and her research

• Political perspective of long-term care: Jean Hermesse (Belgium)
  Jean Hermesse, expert in healthcare , past vice-president of the largest healthcare fund of Belgium, participates since 40 years in the design of health policy, taught health economics.

• The Canadian perspective: Nan McFadgen (Canada)
  Nan McFadgen has worked in long-term care for 21 years as Licensed Practical Nurse. She is the President of CUPE NS representing 19,000 CUPE members from many sectors across province. Nan is a Regional Vice President for NS on the CUPE National Executive Board.

Session 2 – Saturday, November 14, 2020 - Working conditions in long-term care during COVID-19
Time: 11h30-13h00 Montreal/17h30-19h00 Brussels and Milan
Host: Maelle Steven (FR-BU)
Translations Available: English, French, Italian, Dutch

• Emilie Marchal (Belgium)
  Emilie Marchal has been working for almost 20 years in a eldery care home, more precisely at the the Ménil residence in Braine-l’Alleud. The home is managed by a company depending on the armonea group, recently bought by the French group Colisée. She works there as an occupational therapist and facilitator but has also been a trade union representative since 2008 (for the CNE). Now more than ever, she sees this role as essential for the well-being of both workers and residents. With her team and the union, she tries to be the safeguard and the whistle-blower when financial and profitability take precedence over human and relational issues.

• Santosh Mahindrakar (Germany)
  Santosh Mahindrakar is a nurse, currently working at Government Hospital, Bielefeld, Germany. He has completed his post-graduation in community health nursing, and holds a Masters in Public Health (MPH). He is pursuing his doctoral study on the policy issues of human resource for health. Since a decade, he has engaged himself in building a team of nurses to address large public health issues and rights around the professional and working conditions of nurses. He will be discussing the status of elderly care in Germany based on secondary data and will be narrating the experiences of long term care from different stakeholders (Elderly, Nurses, Nurse Assistant) and interphase between intensive and long term care institutions.

• Krasimira Mehandzhiyska (Bulgaria)
  Krasimira Mehandziyska from Bulgaria has been a nurse since 1985 and has experience working both in Bulgaria and in the UK. She has worked in different medical and care fields such as the cardiology ward, eldery and mental disabilities care and the intensive care unit. She has been at the forefront of the creation, together with her Bulgarian colleagues, of the SBN - Syndicate of Bulgarian Nurses. Krasimira is involved in many actions to improve the health care system in Bulgaria.

• Anna Roos (The Netherlands)
  Anna Roos is 33 years old and living in a small town nearby Amsterdam in The Netherlands .She is a student nurse in the elderly care and is on the Sector Council of the trade union FNV on a voluntary basis. Moreover Anna Roos has been working in a nursing home for 13 years. In those 13 years she has seen a lot of (budgetary) cuts and changes. Currently she is seeing a shift of roles and tasks under the guide off self-managing teams.

• Barb Nederpel (Canada)
  Barb Nederpel became the first woman to be elected President of the Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) in November 2018. A former LPN, Barb has also worked on health care’s front lines at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, B.C. as a care aide and nursing unit clerk. Since 2012, she has served on HEU’s Provincial Executive in the roles of 1st and 2nd Vice-President and as a member of the union’s 2012 bargaining committee. At all levels, she has been a steadfast advocate for workers’ rights, social justice, and strong public health care. She has served in many positions in her HEU/Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local and has served several terms as president of the Kamloops and District Labour Council. Barb has also served on CUPE’s Political Action Committee, as well as on the BC Federation of Labour’s political action committee, and says she is deeply committed to electing progressive governments that respect workers and value the work they do. Barb was elected Regional Vice-President representing British Columbia on the National Executive Board in January 2019.

Session 3 – Thursday, November 19, 2020 - Dignity and Justice in long-term care
Time: 12h30-14h00 Montreal/18h30-20h00 Brussels and Milan
Host: Jean Hermesse
Translations Available: English, French, Italian, Dutch

• Louise Irvine (UK)
  Louise Irvine is a UK General Practitioner (Family Medicine Doctor) working in London. She has a long history of campaigning to defend the National Health Service (NHS)to prevent health service closures and privatisation, as well as campaigning on social care. She is Chair of the successful Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, a landmark campaign that involved mobilising the community in Lewisham, London and taking the Government to court to stop them closing the local hospital. She is on the executive of Keep Our NHS Pubic and is Secretary of Health Campaigns Together. She is also Secretary of Doctors in Unite which is the medical branch of Unite, one of the major unions in the UK. She is on the Council of the British Medical Association. Recently she has been involved in the joint campaign by Keep Our NHs Public and the Socialist Health Association to improve social care and in particular take it out of private hands and back into the public sector. A recent joint conference agreed a list of campaigning demands that we hope to use both at local level and in lobbying politically at national level.

• Christina Warner (Canada)
  Christina Warner is Director of Campaigns and Organizing for the Council of Canadians, an organization bringing people together through collective action and grassroots organizing to challenge corporate power and advocate for people, the planet and democracy. She has spent a decade organizing and advocating for political change in Canada and the U.S., addressing social and economic inequality. Currently, she works with the Council’s 150,000 supporters challenging the role of corporate profit in Canada’s long term care systems, recognizing that the wellbeing of residents, workers, and their families must be prioritized over profit to address the COVID crisis within Canada’s long term care systems. Christina holds a Master’s Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, trains community groups for organizing and political advocacy, and is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Giampiero Griffo (Italy)
  Giampiero Griffo, with a degree in philosophy and training in the field of law, is Co-director of the Robert Castel Center for government and disability studies of the "Suor Orsola Benincasa" University of Naples. Active in associations for the defense of the human rights of people with disabilities since 1972 at the local, national and international level, he is a member of the World Council of Disabled Peoples International, of the board of the European Disability Forum and of the Italian Federation for the Overcoming of Handicap. Moreover he is president of the Italian Disability and Development Network, expert in the Bioethics Committee of S. Marino, he has collaborated as consultant in European projects, has published articles, volumes and research at national and international level. He was an advisor in the Italian delegation that participated in the writing of the UNCRP. He is at the moment responsible of the National Observatory of the condition of persons with disabilities.
• Maciej Kucharczyk - AGE (Belgium/Europe)
  Secretary General of AGE Platform Europe since July 2020 - a network of over 100 organisations "of" and "working for" people aged 50 and over - Maciej has overall responsibility for managing the network and implementing AGE’s strategic objectives. Prior to taking over as Secretary General, Maciej had been working at AGE since 2006 on social policy issues such as the adequacy and sustainability of social protection, minimum income, the promotion of human rights, social justice and dignity. From 2014 to 2020, he was vice-president of the Social Platform, the largest European network of rights-based NGOs working in the social sector.
  Maciej has a degree in International Economic Relations at the University of Lodz, Poland and holds post-graduate degrees in European Affairs from the College of Europe, Belgium, and in Public Administration from the ENA, France.

Session 4 - Saturday, November 21, 2020
Time: 11h30-13h00 Montreal/17h30-19h00 Brussels and Milan
Language Groups: English, french, Italian, Dutch

Discussion: Commercialization of long-term care
Discussion: Public austerity measures and the commercialization of
long-term care
Discussion: Political perspective of long-term care
Discussion: Working conditions of employees in long-term care
Discussion: Ensuring a dignified life for senior citizens in long-term care