What this project is:
This is a growing crowd-sourced database about the healthcare system crisis being experienced in Canada.
It is an information resource and an organizing tool.
It contains listings of news, analysis, campaigns, protests, webinars, recordings, COVID research, and other materials, to assist people in addressing the crisis in the best way(s) possible.
The primary aim – and value – is to gather all of this together **in one place**, to make it accessible for a wide variety of people.
It is grouped into four categories
(each is a separate table/view embedded below)
- Take Action / Events;
(Divided into two parts: (1) Initiatives & Upcoming Events;
-and- (2) Past Events: Recordings/Reports & Listings)
- Healthcare System News / Status / Analysis;
By far the largest part of the database; currently only organized chronologically.
- Prevention Measures News+
(i.e. Masking – Ventilation – Paid Sick Days);
- Layperson Guides and Science Info
about COVID and respiratory illnesses.
How to use this project:
To make this database more useful for everyone – for now and in the future – two things are needed:
- More people being aware of it (aka, spread the word!);
- More people contributing to the collection (aka, add items!).
Add Entries
Here is a link to the input form for adding entries.
A key concept here is, if you think this database doesn’t have things it should, add them – or even get the organizations / journalists creating the content, to start doing so themselves!
For inspiration: Listen to this short excerpt from CBC Ideas, with Bellingcat’s Giancarlo Fiarello describing the role of people’s contributions using their similar crowd-sourcing model.
Spread the word: Print Flyers … Also, share the link online
Here is a PDF file of quarter-page flyers to print and distribute in-person, to friend, family, neighbours, or at events or in the street.
Note: These can be a good conversation-starter, to see where people are at and discuss the issues – and what to do. Check out this CBC Ideas excerpt with internet experts Ron Deibert and Jennifer Walsh about the importance of connecting offline.
**Also: You can Sign Up for updates sent to your inbox
Receive approximately one email per week with a listing of the new entries.
This is useful to ensure you’re able to stay on top of things, without needing to continually monitor the database.
Below the following embedded tables, are additional detailed ideas on making this database work, and what value and usefulness it offers to various people and organizations.
To navigate these table views: use the blue ‘expand’ arrows to see an entry’s full info, or use the horizontal scroll bar.
Note that some entries do have secondary links or other information that isn’t visible upon first glance.
TAKE ACTION – INITIATIVES AND UPCOMING EVENTS
Subsections: (1) Ongoing Initiatives/Campaigns (2) Upcoming Events: Webinars, Meetings, Protests/Rallies, etc (3) Petitions, Letters, etc
ACTIONS (PART 2) – PAST EVENTS
Subsections: (1) Event media = recordings of webinars, and articles/photos/videos from protests etc (2) Listings of past event notices
HEALTHCARE SYSTEM NEWS / STATUS / ANALYSIS
For now, this table is simply listed in reverse chronological (i.e., most recent first) order; categories are listed but not sorted by.
PREVENTATIVE MEASURES NEWS
Subsections: (1) Ventilation/ Air Quality (2) Paid Sick Days (3) Masking / Mask Mandates
GUIDES and SCIENCE for COVID (and a bit on OTHER VIRUSES)
Subsections: Guides – Analysis – Studies
Remember – Use the input form to add further entries that aren’t already included, OR, to update or correct/add to existing entries.
Note that this is a work-in-progress, formally launched November 19, 2022. The organization structure, categories, etc, may be re-envisioned and revised or fine-tuned. If you have thoughts, please add them as a comment on this post, or by email (top-right of this site).
Explanatory notes
About two-thirds of the way through this video, is my short presentation of this crowdsourced database project concept to the Ottawa Board of Health at their December meeting. It’s about a minute and a half segment in the six minute video – before that part, I was speaking about the healthcare system crisis, as well as the OCDSB school board situation with mask mandates:
Project purpose, usefulness, potential: (initial notes)
- The primary purpose of this compilation is to create a way for more people to be aware of the situation and how to get involved in doing something about it.
- This is especially of use for people who don’t have the connections or capacity to access and stay on top of all of the relevant information.
- The ‘digital divide’ has many aspects: some people aren’t online, or use it very sparingly; some people who are online, will only know about these things if they learn about it offline; some people aren’t on social media; some people don’t have the connections on social media or digital literacy to find the relevant information; some people don’t have the time or energy keep up to date; some people very active on social media will think most everyone else sees the same information they see; some people are drowning in misinformation; ‘social media bubbles’ insulate people from having a good sense of the diversity of information and views circulating; etc etc.
- A primary value of this database is having all the information in one place. It’s not only one organization’s point of view, or one media outlet’s reporting, but it is one place where people can compile and access various sources and stories and events, all compiled together in an easy-to-access reference resource.
How to help make this be more effective and useful – (initial notes)
- There are two primary things to do, needed to make this work well:
Helping to add entries/content to the database; and,
Helping to spread the word so other people know about it, and are able to access it. - More details of ideas for exactly how to do this, will be written up and posted here soon, but in a general sense they are self-explanatory… they just need doing!
Background
The database arose from an earlier (start of September) call for Hospital Crisis Solidarity, explained at this link.
Previously, during the “Freedom Convoy” occupation of Ottawa, I had started a similar project – the Collected Coverage of the “Freedom Convoy” Ottawa Occupation – and then recently, at the December 7th hearing of the Ottawa People’s Commission, I spoke at length about the project, the context and usefulness of such a thing, and how it worked. It is about 25 minutes including the questions from the OPC commissioners, and it starts at the 1-hour 7-minute mark in the video (note: I phoned in, so I’m not visible in the video, it’s only my audio).