The Réseau du mieux-être francophone du Nord de l’Ontario held its Annual General Meeting via electronic format on Tuesday October 6, 2020. We also took this opportunity to mark the 10th anniversary of the Réseau as the French Language Health Planning Entity for the North. We invite you to view this short video on our journey through the years. We wish to thank our individual and corporate members, along with our distinguished guests, who attended from across the province to celebrate our successes.
An AGM to highlight the importance of French language services
October 9 2020
The past year was marked by the health system transformation with the passing of the Connecting Care Act, 2019 and the proposal for a new regulation governing the planning entities. The Réseau, being one of the key partners in the Regroupement des entités de planification des services de santé en français, provided a position paper, along with the other planning entities on the impact of the health system transformation on home and community care, in addition to providing recommendations to the various inquiries regarding long-term care. The six planning entities adopted a common position requesting a new mandate that would allow them to advise all key partners of the health care system on questions pertaining to French language services.
Our guest speaker, the Major General (retd) Jean-Robert Bernier, Francophone board member of Ontario Health also spoke of the importance of French language services. He indicated that the French Language Services Act and the integration of the Francophone lens within the new structures of Ontario Health and the Ontario Health Teams is a priority for Ontario Health. The Entities have an important role to play along side of the governmental agencies to ensure the advancement of initiatives that are key for Francophones.
We remained engaged in working with our partners across the region to enhance French language services. We initiated the 2nd triennial evaluation cycle of designations, resulting in 16 health service providers being compliant with the 34 designation criteria pursuant to the French Language Services Act. The data collected through the French language services report OZi, allowed us to identify 10 additional health service providers in the North West, who are able to enhance their capacity to offer French language services. Three health service providers in the North East are working towards their designation.
Lastly, we saw a rapid growth in the use of the active offer training, with over 1,009 individuals having completed the training, a 400 % growth over the previous year. In addition to being accredited with the Canadian College of Health Leaders, College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the training was adapted to the realities of the provinces and territories. We continue to render the training accessible and relevant to the realities of health care professionals.
“Within the context of our engagements with the community, our partners and government officials, we have demonstrated on numerous occasions the need for continued collaboration to ensure planning for improved delivery of service in both official languages, in order to allow Francophones to receive their health care in French. We will remain vigilant and take the necessary measures to ensure the well-being of Francophones.”
– Collin Bourgeois, Board Chair
“We take this opportunity to celebrate our accomplishments of the past year. The Réseau’s team was able to adapt and evolve with the new reality of the health care system and the pandemic. Our work on various fronts continued in line with our priorities in order to ensure that Francophones have access to health care services they need in their language.”
– Diane Quintas, Executive Director
We invite you to view our Annual Report for more information on the activities conducted by the Réseau in past year.