2009 Annual CAWC Conference – Results

Ambitious agenda for patient-focused healthcare reform launched

CAWC launched an ambitious five-year, awareness-raising agenda to push for patient-focused healthcare reform during its 15th annual professional conference held in Quebec City from 29 October to 1 November 2009. The focus on public advocacy is a dramatic new direction for our Association, long respected for our educational role but largely unknown outside of the healthcare community.

“Our advocacy agenda is truly a sign of the times,” said Patricia Coutts, incoming Association President and a Registered Nurse practicing in Mississauga, Ontario. “Reform of our public healthcare system is too important for all Canadians. As one of the very few multi-disciplinary healthcare bodies, the CAWC is ready and able to assume a major role in pushing for positive changes to the healthcare system that will help both the patient but also the healthcare professional in their efforts to improve lives.”

CAWC will be ramping up its communications and advocacy programs, to empower patients and partner with other healthcare organizations to ask for positive changes that support patients, their care-givers and the health professionals who help them manage their health and their wounds.

Please download the CAWC’s 5-year strategic plan (PDF)

National Wound Management & Prevention Research Task Force announced

Dr. David Keast and Dr. Gail Woodbury were publicly appointed as co-chairs of the newly created CAWC National Wound Management & Prevention Research Task Force. As part of our Association’s new five-year strategic plan, the National Research Task Force will consult with Canadian researchers to identify research priorities for the CAWC to support in helping to improve wound management and prevention. Stay tuned for more news about the proposed activities of the task force early in 2010!

Patient’s candid, emotional story impresses at participants

“I effectively lost my life when I developed leg ulcers. Thanks in no small measure to the work of the CAWC, the treatment and support I received gave me back that life.” – Monique Bayard.

Monique Bayard is an unlikely Canadian Idol contestant. Yet, judging by the Montreal grandmother’s debut as a vocal patient advocate at the CAWC’s 15th Annual Conference, maybe those ‘Idol’ performers should start looking over their shoulders! It would seem that a ‘star’ patient advocate was born in Quebec City.

Monique co-chaired two conference workshops: My Life with a Chronic Wound and Helping Patients Get What They Need. Her emergence as something of a ‘CAWC celebrity’ is highly instructive. For starters, it was a role that she had been dreading.

Conference

“When I was approached to make a presentation at the CAWC conference, my first thought was to say ‘no’. I couldn’t see myself speaking in front of an audience, especially one with so many healthcare professionals! Then I thought about my personal experience as a patient, and realized that I had a responsibility, perhaps even an obligation, to give something back to those who had done so much for me.”

To Monique, it seemed that her life was changing for the worse five years ago. She began to notice a small, red mark on the inside heel of her left foot. Unknown to her at the time, the half-inch, burn-like wound was the beginning of a leg ulcer.

“At first I wondered whether it might have had something to do with an earlier attack of edema. There was a persistent burning sensation and I found it more and more difficult to do daily tasks, such as putting on stockings, without a great deal of pain. I was anxious and increasingly worried.”

Monique fortunately had a head-start in seeking a diagnosis. She worked for a group of plastic surgeons at Sainte-Justine Hospital for Mothers and Children in the Montreal district of Côte de Neiges. And it was there that she met Louise Forest-Lalande, a stomo-therapy nurse in the Hospital’s Health Promotion Department.

When Louise came by the Plastic Surgery Clinic one day to discuss treatment options for complex wound cases, Monique asked her to look at her wound. Recognizing the injury to be a developing leg ulcer, Louise referred Monique to wound care specialists at the Royal Victoria Hospital, and it was here that the CAWC network came into play when Lincoln D’Souza, a long-time CAWC member, became her nurse.

“Lincoln was just one of the exceptional individuals I came to know in the course of my treatment,” Monique says. “Everyone was so helpful, so reassuring and so respectful of my condition and feelings.”

Given her experience, Monique didn’t hesitate when she was asked to speak at the CAWC’s Quebec City conference. However, that didn’t stop her nervousness of sharing her own story with delegates.

“I had butterflies in my stomach and my heart was racing. But I screwed up my courage and plunged ahead.”

Monique needn’t have worried. She captivated people with her sincerity and passion for the rights of patients to be integrally involved in their treatment.

So, how does Monique feel after her ‘baptism of fire’? It would seem that a ‘star’ was born.

“I’m still on a ‘high’ after that amazing conference. I have nothing but terrific memories and I still get emotional just thinking about it. I hope I don’t sound vain, but I’m very proud of myself. I was so reluctant initially. Now, I feel so much more empowered, as both a patient and an advocate.”

Monique understands that the keys to more effective wound care are education and advocacy. “There are so many others who have the same challenges that I faced. Only someone who was a patient can know what a relief it was that I didn’t have to face things by myself.”

Indeed, if Monique had one core message, it was that caregivers should put themselves in the place of a patient first encountering a strange and often frightening medical system. And her message for patients? “Don’t let your fear of the unknown hold you back from seeking help. Get an evaluation and treatment just as soon as you can. For me, it meant a productive and meaningful life.”

CAWC 2010 Conference - Details coming soon!

Please contact us at: info@cawc.net.