Surplus of social life

Am still recovering from all the social life of late, enjoyable as it is you still have to get up and go to work in the a.m. Last evening we headed down the shore after work to visit with my former work group of safety officers. It was so good to see them all, especially as two of the guys are going to be retiring this year. We had a great supper and some laughs, too bad we had to leave early as it was a 2 hr drive each way. The Salty Rose cottages are unbelievable - a fireplace in the corner of the whirlpool tub - a featherbed topper and duvet on the queen sized bed in the loft of the larger cottage. All sorts of dishes, pots & pans and it even had a stainless steel lined dishwasher. Nicer than most houses. As we were pulling out of the driveway there were three deer grazing and sauntering along by the playground, just like pets.

Today at work was the day we had chosen for humor so the dietician (you wouldn't normally think of them as funny eh?) and myself distributed some jokes. You would be surprised at how difficult it is to source clean, politically correct but still funny jokes. We also handed out popcorn (no movies as no one has time to watch them and it makes them cranky to remind them) in all the departments. We left the inpatient nursing wing until last as I told my sidekick that these were the toughest nuts. When we arrived with the goodies one of the staff asked what the treats were for and I replied "the workplace wellness committee" but was quickly ambushed by a long service staff member who said "oh they're just trying to raise morale or something by handing stuff out" to which I replied "the only one who can increase morale is yourself" She then turns to me and says "you should make it so I can take a week's vacation as there's no replacements" I told her I'd left my magic wand at home today. As I walked away I thought, now I took extra worktime I don't have to do some of these activities this week and why did I do that? Some people need to retire even before I do. This is going to cause even greater RN shortages as highlighted by an article in the media today:

TORONTO (CP) — While the number of nurses working in the country is climbing, the increase isn’t rapid enough to offset pending retirements, the Canadian Nursing Association warned Tuesday. Nursing schools are graduating just under 8,400 nurses a year but 12,000 a year are needed to replace those approaching retirement age, Lisa Little, the organization’s associate director of public policy and communications said from Ottawa.

Little was commenting on an annual report on the size and distribution of the Canadian nursing workforce released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. "Out of the CIHI report we learn that more than 50,000 or 20 per cent of the RNs are eligible to retire right now. They’re over the age of 55," she said. "And there are more RNs employed in the ages of 50 to 54 than any other age group. We have a very skewed distribution." The report suggested the percentage growth in the national nursing workforce has actually exceeded that of the Canadian population over the past five years, growing by five per cent compared to three per cent growth in the population as a whole. But it also noted the average age of working nurses continues to creep up, reaching nearly 45 years of age in 2006.

Little said increasing the intake in nursing schools is only part of the needed solution. Finding innovative ways to keep nurses healthy and working longer also has to be part of the approach.

A little later on one of the admin staff wandered by a group of us in the hall and asked "why is there a camisole on the railing in the stairwell?" One of the group there was a staff member has a rather diminished sense of humor and who remains at work but on most days has actually retired. I turned to her and mischieviously said "that's yours isn't it?" to which she replied "what's a camisole?" Some folks lead really sheltered lives.

Well this evening as I waited for the menfolk to make it out of the woods from taking the provisions in - I've been baking up a storm for the redneck weekend. A loaf of brown bread, chocolate chip cookies and a chocolate cake for the boy's birthday on Saturday. I've received word that the prodigal son (who stayed for supper) will be bringing the girlfriend along for the weekend so I must get some more social craft activities together (had planned to read) for tomorrow's trip in then time to crawl into the nest.