from MEDIACORP CANADA Survey Oct. 2010
At $1500 a year forced payment CPSO takes in approx $50,000,000 yearly.
Helps employees prepare for retirement through a defined contribution pension plan and phased-in retirement working options.
Over 65% of management employees are women
Provides tuition subsidies (to $3,000 each year) for courses at outside institutions as well as opportunities for internal and external secondments
Provides new mothers with generous top-up payments to 100% of salary for the first 2 weeks of their leave, followed by a 75% top-up for 26 weeks.
Provides parental leave top-up payments (to 26 weeks) for new fathers and adoptive parents
Offers employees generous referral bonuses when they successfully refer a new candidate ($1500)
Industry: ProfesEstablished: 1866. Full-time employees in Canada: 252. Part-time employees in Canada: 23. New jobs created in Canada last year: 3. Voluntary employee turnover last year: 1.2%. Longest serving employee: 47 years. Workforce engaged on a contract basis: 8%. Number of applications received at this location last year: 1,500. Percentage of employees who are women: 81%. Of managers: 67%. Of directors: 26%. Average age of all employees: 42.
Originally constructed in the 1960s the newly renovated head office features an onsite fitness facility (with subsidized memberships, stationary bikes, shower facilities, walking and running clubs); employee lounge (with comfortable seating, daily newspapers and board games); nap room; religious observance room; secure bicycle parking; free parking; subsidized on-site yoga and pilates classes; free coffee/tea.
Employees at their head office enjoy business casual dress; casual dress Fridays; can listen to music while working; employee sports teams; organized social events. The company-subsidized social committee organizes an annual year-end formal, an annual employee appreciation day, an annual lunch to celebrate its long-serving employees, and a special Christmas party for employees' children. In addition, employees and their families can kick-off the Christmas season watching the city's famous Santa Claus parade from the comfort of the head office building, which is conveniently located directly on the parade route -- with the College providing everyone with free parking, hotdogs and drinks.
Individual salaries are reviewed every 12 months. CPSO also provides new employee referral bonuses (to $1,500 for some positions); defined contribution pension plan with employer contributions (up to 10% of salary); life & disability insurance; retirement planning assistance; discounts on home computers; an interest-free computer purchase plan.
Their health benefits plan is managed by Great West Life. As part of the health plan, the employer pays 100% of the premiums. Employees who work 28 hours per week receive coverage. The waiting period for new employees is 90 days. Employees receive full family coverage on the health benefits plan. The health plan also includes retiree coverage with no age limit. The basic plan includes routine dental; restorative dental; eyecare ($350 every 2 years); traditional medicine coverage; alternative medicine coverage; massage therapy; medical equipment and supplies; homecare; employee assistance (EAP) plan; travel insurance. Lunchtime wellness workshops; small healthcare spending account. The College's family-friendly benefits include maternity and parental leave top-up payments to 100% of salary for the first two weeks, followed by: maternity top-up payments (to 75% of salary for 26 weeks); parental leave top-up for new fathers (to 75% of salary for 26 weeks); parental leave top-up for adoptive parents (to 75% of salary for 26 weeks); health benefits during maternity and parental leave. Additional family-friendly benefits include: flexible working hours; telecommuting; 35-hour work week (with full pay); shortened work week (fewer hours with less pay); reduced summer hours program; compressed work week; earned days off (EDO) program; phased-in retirement.
New employees receive 3 weeks of vacation allowance after their first year. Vacation increases after 5 years on the job. Long-serving employees receive a maximum of 6 weeks of vacation each year. Employees can schedule 2 personal days off each year, as needed. During the Christmas to New Year's holiday break, employees receive an additional 4 days off. Employees receive 12 paid sick days every year. Employees can also apply for an unpaid leave of absence.
Top performing employees may receive personally tailored non-monetary gifts, such as afternoon lunches, flowers, evening dinners and movie passes.
Employees receive tuition subsidies for courses related to their position. (Employers pay up to $3,000 in subsidies). Employees may also receive tuition subsidies for courses unrelated to their current position. (Employers pay up to $3,000 in tuition subsidies for non-related courses). The College also supports ongoing employee career development with: subsidies for professional accreditations; job exchanges; opportunities for internal and external secondments.
Employees receive paid time off to volunteer with their favourite charitable organizations. Employees also receive 2 paid days off to volunteer.
(Club Paradiso)
12 July 2011
NEISERRIA GONORRHEOA: ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT
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"antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea"
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A health worker checks a blood sample in western Cambodia January 28, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Damir SagoljLONDON | LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have found a "superbug" strain of gonorrhea in Japan that is resistant to all recommended antibiotics and say it could transform a once easily treatable infection into a global public health threat.The new strain of the sexually transmitted disease -- called H041 -- cannot be killed by any currently recommended treatments for gonorrhea, leaving doctors with no other option than to try medicines so far untested against the disease.
Magnus Unemo of the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria, who discovered the strain with colleagues from Japan in samples from Kyoto, described it as both "alarming" and "predictable."
"Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it," he said.
In a telephone interview Unemo, who will present details of the finding at a conference of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research (ISSTDR) in Quebec, Canada on Monday, said the fact that the strain had been found first in Japan also followed an alarming pattern.
"Japan has historically been the place for the first emergence and subsequent global spread of different types of resistance in gonorrhea," he said.
The team's analysis of the strain found it was extremely resistant to all cephalosporin-class antibiotics -- the last remaining drugs still effective in treating gonorrhea.
Gonorrhea is a bacterial sexually transmitted infection and if left untreated can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility in women.
It is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the world and is most prevalent in south and southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In the United States alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of cases is estimated at around 700,000 a year.
British scientists said last year that there was a real risk of gonorrhea becoming a superbug -- a bacteria that has mutated and become resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics -- after increasing reports of gonorrhea drug resistance emerged in Hong Kong, China, Australia and other parts of Asia.
Experts say the best way to reduce the risk of even greater resistance developing -- beyond the urgent need to develop effective new drugs -- is to treat gonorrhea with combinations of two or more types of antibiotic at the same time.
This technique is used in the treatment of some other diseases like tuberculosis in an attempt to make it more difficult for the bacteria to learn how to conquer the drugs.
Unemo said however that experience from previous degrees of resistance acquired by gonorrhea suggested this new multi-drug resistant strain could spread around the world within decades.
"Based on the historical data ... resistance has emerged and spread internationally within 10 to 20 years," he said.
Asked whether a class of drugs called carbapenems -- known as the most powerful antibiotics yet devised -- might be a last ditch option for treating this new gonorrhea strain, Unemo said there would first need to be trials to assess their potential.
"Carbapenems have never been used for the treatment of gonorrhea so we cannot interpret the data in any reliable or quality-assured way at the moment," he said.
The World Health Organization estimates there are at least 340 million new cases of curable sexually transmitted infections -- including syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and trichomoniasis -- every year among people aged 15 to 49.
Related Interactive
A health worker checks a blood sample in western Cambodia January 28, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Damir Sagolj
ONTARIO: another CPSO use of paid "Agents provocateurs"
- Torstar Network
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Doc facing sanctions
Day in court. Dr. David Lambert is pictured leaving the College of Physicians and Surgeons building in Toronto. He's pleaded guilty to four counts of professional misconduct involving the licence restrictions but denies allegations he sexually abused a woman by brushing his hand across her breast. Photo by Henry Stancu/Toronto Star
The 59-year-old Mississauga general practitioner looks confident and relaxed, chewing gum as he chats with a woman and her friend about his line of anti-wrinkle skin creams and a $650 collagen injection he could perform right then and there.
The two women are, in fact, private investigators hired by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to catch Lambert breaching restrictions placed on his medical licence in 2009.
At a college disciplinary hearing that began yesterday, Lambert pleaded guilty to four counts of professional misconduct involving the licence restrictions.
What Lambert denies, however, is that he sexually abused one of the private eyes sent to spy on him, allegedly brushing his hand across her breast.
"This was not a poke or a nudge," said the 40-year-old, sturdy blond woman, whose name must be kept secret under a publication ban ordered by the college. "It was a swipe."
The alleged caress - the only count in dispute - will take up the bulk of Lambert's scheduled three days of hearings.
In 2002, the Mississauga physician, who has an office near the Trillium Health Centre, lost his licence after the college found he had sexually abused three female patients.
In June 2009, four months before the sting, the college reinstated his licence with limits, saying it was only fair he get a second chance.
Yesterday, Lambert admitted he has "squandered" that chance. He has been practicing in Mississauga for the past 31 years.
The sting operation video provides indisputable proof Lambert flouted his licence restrictions - he was not allowed to treat women or minors, could not sell his cosmetic products to patients and was prohibited from performing procedures not covered by OHIP, namely cosmetic ones. He is clearly seen on video filling a syringe with a dermal "filler" after discussing the procedure with the posing patients.
What the video does not show, Lambert's lawyer argues, is the alleged caress of the private eye's right breast. The doctor is accused of brushing the back of his index finger across her nipple as she handed him a patient consent form.
The alleged incident happens just outside the frame of the video shot by a second investigator on a camera hidden in a cellphone. Even in super-slow motion it is inconclusive.
"Could this have been an accidental brush by Dr. Lambert while he was grabbing the papers?" asked Carolyn Silver, one of two lawyers acting on behalf of the college.
"Absolutely no way," the private investigator said.
In an aggressive cross-examination, Lambert's lawyer, Roy Stephenson, pointed out that nowhere in the video does the woman seem to acknowledge the alleged incident, and neither does she bring it up with the other investigator when Lambert leaves the room.
The woman said she was focused on staying in character and carrying out the task she was hired to do.
"Our objective was not for Dr. Lambert to touch me. It was the last thing anybody wanted to occur," she said. "I had a job to do."
Lambert admitted "disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional" conduct when he lied to college officials three days after the incident, saying the women hired by the college were sales agents for his skin cream, not prospective patients.
"No comment," Lambert said outside the college's downtown office when asked why he ignored his licence restrictions only a few months after being reinstated.
Yesterday's appearance is actually Lambert's third before the college's disciplinary committee to face professional misconduct allegations of a sexual nature.
Some 20 years ago, he had to explain a series of sexually derogatory and demeaning remarks made to female patients. The committee found him guilty of professional misconduct and his licence was suspended for six months.
In 2000, four women came forward to allege Lambert had sexually abused them, ranging from inappropriate remarks to sexual touching and groping.
Those cases were also bolstered by hidden-camera videos shot by patients. Lambert denied many of the allegations until he became aware of the videos. He then then admitted the offences, according to the committee's 2002 decision.
Lambert's licence was revoked. In 2008, he applied for reinstatement.
With supporting evidence from psychologists and other medical experts, the committee wrote it was "in the public interest and fair to Dr. Lambert" to reinstate his licence subject to restrictions.
"Dr. Lambert was not viewed to be a predator, and has had no problems with alcohol, drugs or criminal activity."
In October 2009, after patients complained to the college Lambert was pushing his skin creams on them and college officials came across his commercial website, it sent in the private investigators.
Lambert is suspended pending the outcome of his disciplinary hearing, which resumes today.
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