Support workers deserve better

Re: Care work by day, shelter by night, Jan. 8.

That essential workers are so poorly paid that some must sleep in homeless shelters is distressing enough. But when we consider that the worst effects of the pandemic fall upon occupants of long-term care centres where PSWs work, it becomes monstrous.

At the heart of COVID-19's grim spread and devastation in long-term care is the unwillingness of those who govern to ensure adequate compensation and benefits for PSWs. Only when this is rectified can we hope that people who must be cared for are getting the protection they are due. Those responsible for failure to do so should recognize that they themselves and their loved ones will one day be grateful to feel confident in the care they receive at the hands of dedicated PSWs.

Frederic S. Carpenter, Ottawa

Doctors use faxes because they work Re: Fax still the way to get stuff done, Jan. 8.

I am puzzled by the remarkable number of difficult instances Kate Heartfield has experienced with her doctors, and which she attributes to fax machines.

There is a simple reason faxes are still used in medicine: they work and are reliable, while attempts to replace them with digital systems have been fraught with technical difficulties, inefficiencies and delays.

As a family physician with a large practice, I receive and send 20 to 40 faxes every day and it is a rarity that an expected fax does not arrive or is not delivered. An added bonus is that I never have to worry about malware or ransomware.

I do use an electronic record system.

The faxes are sent and received through this system and entered into the electronic record, usually the same day they are sent. If there is a delay, it is usually related to other problems with electronic record systems, in particular the unwieldy system used by The Ottawa Hospital.

The fax system works remarkably well.

Dr. Ray Dawes, Barry's Bay

Tired of ongoing telephone tag

While I agree with Kate Heartfield that fax machines are old technology, so is telephone tag. In my experience, the “pharmacy sent it/ physician did not receive it/ client repeatedly attempts to call both” loop is primarily caused by the physician's office turning off the fax machine during an office's closed hours.

Please just leave it on 24/7. An alternative is virtual fax, which is inherently 24/7. Richard Anderton, Nepean

Communications breakdown

Kate Heartfield's article was dead-on and I can relate all too well. For more than two years, I have been the only advocate for my 81-year-old mother and her consistent and serious health issues. Like Heartfield, I find that the lack of communication and collaboration causes many headaches, stress on my own family, tears of frustration, etc.

With calendars, contacts, hundreds of follow-ups and many spreadsheets, I navigate our health-care system with five medical specialists assigned to my mother for various ailments under the umbrella of her family doctor (who only uses fax machines).

The physicians will not actually talk to each other (“we share our notes” … uh-huh).

Keeping track of her electronic health-care records through The Ottawa Hospital and the Life Labs portal for all her blood work keeps my head spinning; these two systems don't talk to each other either. Like Heartfield, I respect and admire all the doctors, but I also agree the system is a communication nightmare.

Monica Laing, Ottawa