James P. Waddell, M.D., FRCSC
Coordinator, Canadian National Action Network
Toronto, ON

The National Action Network for the Bone & Joint Decade has recently published their first newsletter. Thanks to the very hard work of Ms. Dot Brown in Calgary and Ms. Hazel Wood in Toronto, our first newsletter is a reality. This newsletter focuses largely, but not exclusively, on arthritis, while the second newsletter is planned for the winter, which will have osteoporosis as its major focus. Subsequent newsletters will focus on trauma and diseases and injuries in childhood. We hope to do this four times a year. There will be a print version of the newsletter initially, but we may eventually go primarily electronic with fewer print copies - the economy of this is obvious to everyone.  

The National Action Network for the Bone & Joint Decade sees the newsletter as the best vehicle for reaching all of the constituent organizations that are part of the National Action Network and informing each of us about the activities of the other organizations. We also think that this information role will hopefully lead, eventually, to a more significant role in terms of coordinating activities in Canada around bone and joint health and ensuring that our constituent organizations are working together and not at cross purposes in terms of patient care, education and research.

Most recently, the National Action Network has attempted to coordinate activities between the Rheumatology Association and the Orthopaedic Association around patient care access issues. This type of coordinated effort seems to be much better in terms of bringing the attention of the public and government to issues around patient access to care.

The Canadian Orthopaedic Foundation has pledged $10,000 toward the Bone & Joint Decade in Canada for this year and this funding, in addition to that already committed by Stryker/ Howmedica/Osteonics will allow us to move ahead with our agenda to improve bone and joint health in Canada over the next year.

Those of us on the Executive Committee of the National Action Network appreciate the continued support that the Bone & Joint Decade has received from the publicity provided at the recent Canadian Orthopaedic Association meeting and would ask all of you as orthopaedic surgeons to implicitly endorse the Bone & Joint Decade by including our logo on your correspondence. You can receive copies of the logo by contacting Dot Brown, University of Calgary at Cet e-mail est protégé contre les robots collecteurs de mails, votre navigateur doit accepter le Javascript pour le voir .