One milk, one sugar— up to five times per day, depending on how much Brittany Wesson needs to get done and if the coffee maker at the retirement home she works at is functioning.

Living in a townhouse off Strandherd Drive in old Barrhaven, Wesson has two kids under three, juggles a part-time nursing job and interns at a local church, while her husband commutes to Gatineau on weekdays for night shift duty.

Fifty thousand dollars a year of combined income seemed a decent amount, until Wesson crunched the numbers: more than $20,000 goes to her mortgage, rent and other utilities and expenses.

“It is emotionally taxing,” the twenty-five year old said, sipping coffee from a flower-patterned mug on her kitchen table. “It’s the gig straight for 13 days: barely seeing my kids, struggling to see them and actually being invested when I’m home with them.”

“I’m in this permanent state of tired,” she said.

The Keurig doesn’t sit far away.

Wesson and her family are among the spike of Ottawa households spending 30 per cent or more of their income on housing.

The percentage has risen most dramatically in certain parts of the suburbs like Kanata, Orleans and Barrhaven in the last five years, according to an analysis of data from Statistics Canada’s 2016 census report.

“It’s a crazy life for young families now—people stretch their income,” said Marianne Wilkinson, councilor to Kanata North, ward four. “It’s all west end, it’s growing much faster than the east end now.”

Taking the kids to art lessons, basketball and dance classes—all in one evening— turns parents into taxi drivers, Wilkinson explained, recalling conversations she’s had with members of the community.

With more residents in suburb communities, more people frequent the long commute to the office via OC Transpo instead of sitting in traffic and fuming gas, according to Wilkinson.

The average income for families living in Ontario was $81,450 in 2015, according to Statistics Canada.

“If you’re making 40,000 a year, 30 per cent that’s one thing,” said Wilkinson. “If you’re making 100,000 a year— that’s another thing.”

The census data for employment is expected to be released on November 29, and may help provide context to how much families are actually spending on housing.

“There’s a lot of jobs that would normally be downtown and are moving westerly,” said Dan Salhany, a local real estate agent with Hallmark who has been in the housing business since 1988.

There has been stronger momentum and higher consumer confidence in the marketplace in the last five years, and 2017 in particular has been a strong year for selling homes overall, Salhany noted.

“Of course, you can certainly dampen someone’s dream,” he said, regarding prospective homeowners’ expectations exceeding their budgets. “Your job is to keep them realistic and give them the facts. They have to decide from there.”

Ottawa housing, like other Canadian cities such as Toronto and Vancouver, is benefiting from foreign investors and is growing in number and price, according to Salhany and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

“I’ve cut back on a lot in my life,” said Wesson. “For me, it’s been realizing that I can’t go out for coffee with friends, I can’t go shopping, I can’t buy the kids new clothes … because we’ve had so many expenses.”

Wesson has learned the practicality of making ends meet, such as rationing gas usage, meal prepping and budgeting winter jackets for her kids.

“My parents have been a huge support,” she said, explaining her goal of creating her own safety net for her family. “They’ve bailed me out way too many times.”

More than 700 health inspections for recreational pools across Ottawa were conducted in the last six years, but only two have successfully passed without a single violation, according to an analysis of data from the Ottawa Public Health records.

The discomforting percentage represents the total of Ottawa pools found in spas, hotels, apartments and City facilities that did comply with the Ontario public pool legislation.

The success rate is closer to zero than even 0.01 per cent.

“Health inspectors will determine if the infraction is deemed a health hazard, meaning it poses an immediate threat to the safety of the public by causing risk of potential drowning or exposure to water-borne illness,” said Michelle Goulet, a public health inspector with the Ottawa Public Health.

Although heath inspectors can close pools if there are too many or extreme violations present, closures are rare.  From January 2011 to September 2017, a total of 713 health inspections did not pass inspections without at least one checkbox unchecked.

The Brookstreet hotel in Kanata, a staple known for hosting touring celebrities, is among the top two pool amenities with the largest number of health inspection violations.

When asked about their 67 infractions, the hotel declined to comment. Kanata’s Holiday Inn also refused to be interviewed about their health inspection history.

It takes approximately six years to get to Jupiter by spacecraft. In that timeframe, both the Brookstreet Hotel and the Holiday Inn locations would not be one of the two successful inspections, according to the Ottawa Public Health’s data.

“People leave messes,” said Kurtis Baker, a maintenance helper at the Richcraft Recreation Complex in Kanata.

An infraction can be inadequate pool rules signage, incorrect chlorine levels and even lousy air supply. While legislation and policies vary between different kinds of pools, employees may be responsible for weekly, monthly or quarterly ‘check ups’ of the building as well.

“If we didn’t do any of our assigned duties, we’d probably have diseases running through the changerooms just because our presence isn’t there,” Baker said. “There’s snacks on the floor, there’s footprints, there’s boogers—there’s everything sitting on the floor.”

These behind-the-scenes staff carry a heavy load of responsibility. If basic duties are left unnoticed, like daily administration paperwork— the most common infraction in the city— facilities suffer on public record.

“Logging our hours is mandatory proof that we’re doing our work,” said Baker. “We’re doing preventative maintenance—not maintenance after the fact— but we’re trying to prevent a problem.”

During Baker’s interview, he was the only maintenance employee on site. Three staff called in sick, one had a flat tire, so he was left with an entire team’s duties for multiple hours.

Having worked at multiple City of Ottawa facilities, the 26-year-old has been a part of various teams with different levels of training, operating methods and experience.

“At the end-of-night cleaning, it’s hot, you’re working hard, it’s fast-paced,” Baker said, sitting up straighter in his chair. “It’s aggravating when you see someone go back to the office and sit on their phone for ten minutes.”

The biggest source of tension for Baker and his colleagues has been teamwork and initiative on following through with delegated maintenance duties.

“It’s easier [for someone to pick up a mop] instead of getting in there and scrubbing toilets,” he said.

Of course, all this happens away from the public eye.

“This is a job where you don’t really get a pat on the back from patrons,” Baker said. “You get the stick not the carrot, but you just do it because it’s your job.”

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Cover photo by Christine Vezarov.

Potentially risky prescriptions are the leading cause of hospitalizations for one in two seniors across Canada, according to an analysis of data from the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) report.

More elderly persons are living longer than ever before, and the healthcare system buckles in effort to not only provide the proper care, but prevent unnecessary harm to Canada’s aging population.

“Medication errors occur all the time,” said Jennifer Jin, a pharmacist at the Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa, Ontario. “The result can be clinically insignificant to fatal, depending on the medication involved.”

Between 2015 and 2016, upwards of four million seniors aged 65 and older were admitted to a Canadian hospital, according to numbers in the CIHI report. 1.9 million of them were admitted because of either wrong or potentially harmful medication.

A medication error can happen at any point before the prescription reaches the patient.

It can be as simple as an incorrectly written administration route, a wrong dosage supplied, or a prescription picked up from the wrong tray.

“There’s not one nurse that can say ‘I’ve never done a medication error,’” said Guylaine Gallant, the director of health and wellness at the Prince of Wales Manor in Barrhaven, a retirement home in Ottawa.

“It does happen,” she said. “But we try to make sure that there are no room for errors.”

Hospitalizations put a strain on the healthcare system, especially when it can be prevented.

“The hospital beds would ideally be available for patients who need care due to their medical conditions,” said Jin. “And not filled with patients who have iatrogenic illnesses from taking wrong or inappropriate medications.”

The terms ‘inappropriately prescribed’ and ‘potentially inappropriate’ have completely different meanings, she noted. The latter refers to unsafe prescriptions for the elderly population that should be avoided altogether.

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada’s ‘Beers List’ compiled medication names, cases and research for potentially inappropriate medications for older persons. Listed as ‘high alert’ are: warfarin, oral antiplatelet, insulin, opioids and digoxin – all medications used for blood clotting and blood sugar regulation, narcotics or various cardiovascular problems.

In Jin’s experience, the top three prescriptions given to partients are heart medications, antidepressants and narcotics. All of which are commonly used by seniors as well.

While the Canadian Institute for Health Information report doesn’t show for which inappropriate medications are most frequently used or administered by who, healthcare professionals have systems in place to prevent risks and errors from happening.

Gallant oversees the Manor’s implementations of the College of Nurses of Ontario standards to ensure mistakes and risks are minimized. Some examples include operating their own in-house pharmacy, a self-reporting system for errors and numerous trainings and audits per year.

“It’s like CPR. You think you now it until you’re being asked at a course and think, ‘s**t, is the ratio 50 to two? Thirty to five?’” Gallant said, highlighting the importance of  accountability in her line of work. “It’s the same with medication—you get a little comfortable and you forget some stuff.”

On the other side of the counter, another problem occurs. When a patient sees multiple doctors, specialists a locations, they don’t bring their medical history slip and ends up on serious medications, this is known as ‘poli-pharmacy’.

“It’s huge. Next thing you know, this medication interacts with that one— but the physician didn’t know—  the patient is 80,” ,” Gallant said. “She can’t tell she’s already on that medication. They end up having so much medication and that’s why they’re in the hospital.”

“The aging population is getting too much,” she said, stressing the need for for better care. “I just feel the need for them is here.”