As Nursing Week begins Sunday, the government and Canadians are concerned about what appears to be declining nursing care. But nurses too are complaining of bullying and intimidation on the job.

A finding by the Ontario Health Coalition that care in nursing homes did not move at 2.85 hours per resident for the past three years has prompted Health Minister George Smitherman to order tougher controls be placed

An estimated 100,000 Danish nurses and other health care workers haven't been to work in two weeks as they demand wage concessions. Experts in Denmark say the strike could go on for several more weeks as government officials have yet to sit down for serious bargaining talks.

Nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians, physiotherapists and nursing aides walked off their jobs last week to demand a 15 percent wage hike over three years to bring them on a par with their colleagues in the private sector. Over 20,000 members of the union Trade and Labour (FOA) that organizes nursing home and kindergarten employees also went on strike

A study released Tuesday reported growing profitability of the nursing home industry, but declining health care quality.

Researchers from the University of California San Francisco found out that two years after the state passed legislation increasing reimbursements from Medi-Cal, average nursing home income from the state's healthcare program went up to $152 from $124 daily

With Nova Scotia as well as the rest of Canada's population turning gray, there is an urgent need to revise the province's outdated laws on incapacitated residents, said Nova Scotia Health Minister Chris d'Entremont. He is pushing for a legislation that would permit residents to appoint another person to make vital decisions concerning personal care if he becomes incapacitated.

Other Canadian provinces had gone ahead and made one. Alberta had a personal care directives law since 1997, British Columbia enacted one in 2000 and New Brunswick passed the Infirm Persons Act recently

Elderly patients with advanced dementia are seven times more likely to receive antibiotics in their last two weeks of life, a Harvard study reports. Though there is little evidence that the drugs relieve suffering of such patients or increase their life span, the study says that excessive use of the drugs can contribute to the development of microbes resistant to antibiotics, a public-health hazard common in nursing homes.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School studied more than 214 patients with an average age of 85 in 21 Boston-area nursing homes. Almost half died during the 18-month study that time. These patients also failed to recognize loved ones, sized to communicate and were unable to walk or feed themselves