ONA launches a new digital publication: The ‘F-Word’

TORONTO – The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) is unveiling a new digital platform where the unvarnished true stories and perspectives of nurses and front-line healthcare professionals in Ontario will be published.

“This new digital publication is a space for our union’s 68,000 front-line members to tell the brutal truth,” said ONA provincial president Erin Ariss (pictured), RN. “For far too long, nurses and health-care professionals have been quiet, but no longer. The F-Word is part of a broader movement of ONA members speaking out and telling it like it really is.”

The name is inspired by ONA members across the province who are reclaiming their fight and shedding their fear of taking action to defend public healthcare and each other. The F-Word is a fierce response to decision makers and those in power who have tried to silence ONA members at every turn.

F-Word will feature in-depth articles about nursing, labour issues and the political landscape. As a regularly updated, online-only source for information, F-Word is also an outlet for expression and connection among grassroots ONA members.

“F-Word is where nurses and healthcare professionals can share their thoughts, fight back, celebrate and lift one another up,” said Ariss. “It is both a news source and a place for our members to vent their frustrations. The F-Word is our space.”

For 17 years, ONA’s award-winning quarterly magazine Front Lines told stories of nursing and healthcare in Ontario. This followed a proud history of regular in-house print publications that connected ONA members and amplified their stories.

“From the front lines to F-Word, we will never stop speaking out and fighting,” said Ariss. “We are telling the truth about what’s happening to our public healthcare.”

Ariss said the launch of the F-Word should put politicians and healthcare employers on notice: “we are silent no more.”

ONA is the union representing more than 68,000 registered nurses and healthcare professionals, as well as 18,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.

Source: Ontario Nurses’ Association