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A1 THURSDAY
The Aurora Banner, Thursday, November 24, 2016
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NOVEMBER 24, 2016 ®
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In Photos
Check out the latest community shots from our photographers www.yorkregion.com/photos Steve Somerville/Metroland
Sherwin Jamisola holds his son Syrus at the entrance of an assesssment room, part of the sub-acute care area of the Southlake emergency department.
Events Calendar
Southlake leads way on wait times CHRIS SIMON csimon@yrmg.com
Many other Ontario hospitals can look toward York Region for inspiration when reducing wait times. Newmarket's Southlake Regional Health Centre is top in Ontario for ER wait times - at about 1.3 hours on average. According to Health Qual-
ity Ontario's recently released Under Pressure: Emergency Department Performance in Ontario, the limit patients waited in Emergency to see a doctor in 2014-2015 was three hours. "We are leaders in the province, specifically our door to doctor time, which far exceeds the provincial average," Emergency department director Kim Storey said. "We've found a num-
ber of operational efficiencies and a philosophy change. We're able to react, in real time, to our patients. We're really proud. Wait times translate into quality of care." Southlake's ER handles about 300 patients per day - they're on pace for 111,000 in total this year. That makes the Southlake ER one of the busiest in the province, she said.
Physician schedules are tailored to meet patient needs every day and the doctors are assisted by 'navigators' tasked with organizing some of the routine elements of their jobs. This allows the doctors to focus on providing care, rather than searching for reports or scheduling their time. Also, the
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HEALTH
Region ‘ground zero’ for growing dementia cases LISA QUEEN lqueen@yrmg.com
Although Teresa Durante learned English after moving to Canada from Italy in 1959, dementia is robbing the senior citizen of her ability to speak her second language. Fortunately, her round-the-clock caregiver, Connie Bertucci, discovered a new day program in Vaughan for Italian-speaking seniors who have been diagnosed with early-stage dementia or Alzheimer's. "We moved (to Woodbridge) to be with the Italian community because I came from Oakville where there was a beautiful program but they were all Englishspeaking and English food and it just made it that much harder," Bertucci said at the official opening of the Calabrian Benevolent Association of Ontario (CBAO) Centre at Islington Avenue and Hwy. 7 as Durante painted at a nearby table with other seniors. "When I found this program, she felt at home in a way because they speak Italian. The environment, she just fit in
and she felt good. I'm so fortunate to find something like this to give me two days off a week. She loves it here, she loves the people, the people are terrific. It means a lot to her. They should have more of these (centres)." With an aging population and a growing number of patients with dementia, there is an increasing need for services, including those that cater to multicultural residents, Loren Freid, CEO of the Alzheimer Society of York Region, said. "The needs are not being met. The dementia population is substantially larger than the services that are here for them," he said. Because short-term memory is the first stage of memory to go with Alzheimer's and dementia, the diseases' victims born overseas often lose the ability to speak the English they learned after moving to Canada and revert to their mother tongues, Freid said. "All of this is a unique challenge here in York Region for a couple of reasons. One is York Region has perhaps the fastest-growing population of seniors across the country," he said.
"While dementia is not a normal part of the aging process, age is its most significant risk factor. So, York Region is essentially ground zero for seeing an increase in people with dementia." There are about 15,000 people in the region with some form of dementia, which is expected to double by 2031. There are about 80 languages spoken in the Greater Toronto Area, according to the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance. "York Region as part of the GTA forms the largest, most diverse ethnocultural community in Canada so it is extremely important to have dementia programs in the native languages of the people who live here," Freid said. Not only do programs help people with the disease communicate more easily, but they also encourage family members to work with organizations such as the Alzheimer's Society to get their loved one the care they need, he said. The society, a leader in providing programs, including staff able to provide services in different languages, helps about
● See NUMBER, page A5
Mike Barrett/Metroland
CBAO Centre in Vaughan program assistant manager Viviana Lionti (right) works with client Rosa Mancuso, as recreational aide Faustina Gyebi looks on.
COUNCIL
Town signs Highland Gate redevelopment settlement TERESA LATCHFORD tlatchford@yrmg.com
The Town of Aurora has officially signed the minutes of settlement with Highland Gate Developments Inc. Among the highlights of the settlement are: • reducing the number of new
single-family homes from 184 to 159; • reducing the height of the condominium building from 10 to seven storeys; • a drop in dwelling units in the condo from 144 to 114; • exclusion of the proposed commercial use on the ground floor of the condo building;
• the addition of a 10-metre buffer throughout the plan between existing rear yards and adjacent new streets; • an increase in the length of off-road trails from 4.4 to 7.5 kilometres; • a major new park, 21 acres in area, to be built at the same time as the first phase of development.
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In 2015, Highland Gate Developments Inc. proposed to transform the former golf course through the construction of 184 single-family homes and a 10-storey condominium. At the time, council did not support the redevelopment proposal in its initial form and believed there were better design and density options for
the site. The developer filed a complaint with the Ontario Municipal Board due to the town’s indecision on the matter within the allotted time period. In October, the town emerged from a closed-door discussion ● See SETTLEMENT, page A12
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