Page 3 - OASC August 2021 Newsletter

August/21
Minutes of the Wednesday, July 7, 2021 OASC Monthly Members’ Meeting...
} 24 members, 1 guest
} Chair: Maureen (Mo) Parkes, President, OASC
Guest speaker: Lori Zozzolotto, NSWOC, ConvaTec Order of business:
Mo called the meeting to order at 7:08 pm, invited members to stay for Jeopardy game at end of meeting, and introduced our speaker.
Guest speaker: Lori Zozzolotto, NSWOC, Regional Clinical Specialist at ConvaTec
Lori shared some great comeback stories about people living life to the fullest with their ostomies. She encouraged everyone to sign up for every loyalty program offered by suppliers to get more support. Nurses in Canada do their best but they only have 6-8 weeks with ostomates before you’re discharged; it can take weeks to adapt to having a stoma. You can call a ConvaTec nurse or NSWOC even if you’re not a customer. They also have a really accessible, info-rich website https://www.convatec.ca/ and some great innovations like Me+ and Lifeworks.
ConvaTec’s Me+ program helps people at every stage, from pre-surgery, to post-surgery recovery and beyond. It’s 3-booklet Recovery Guide written by Sarah Russell (an elite triathlete, physiotherapist and ostomate) that shares exercises that can help you avoid hernias. The guide is supported with videos on ConvaTec’s website. They’re free; you don’t have to be a ConvaTec client to use these, and you can start anytime—even years after surgery. In the UK, people who work through these exercises before surgery and after find they recover much faster.
There’s more to recovery than physical health. Studies show 90% of ostomates experience depression after surgery. ConvaTec’s Lifeworks program offers 1 year of free counselling to new ostomates and their caregivers. That’s an amazing value when the going rate for counselling is $50-250/hour. All the counsel- lors have master’s degrees in their field. You can participate by phone, virtually or in person. They’re third-party suppliers, not ConvaTec employees, and you or your caregiver or spouse can talk to them about anything.
For urostomates, we’re developing a self-guided GentleCath Training module. We already have guides to teach people how to self-catheterize safely but you will be able to customize the video, for example, to reflect your age (adult/child), male/female, preferred position to catheterize.
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