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March 20, 2015

On March 21, 1960, white South African police fired more than 700 shots at peaceful black demonstrators, who were protesting discriminatory “pass laws” in the Sharpeville Township of South Africa. 

Sixty-nine people were killed and 180 wounded. Almost all were shot in the back. 

December 1, 2015

People who have not been vaccinated and are visiting or working at a B.C. health- care facility are once again being asked to don masks. The mask policy goes into effect today, the official start of flu season, and continues until March 31. Flu is usually most prevalent between late December and early January. The B.C. Health Ministry said each year there are about 3,500 deaths from the flu and its complications in Canada. Provincial health officer Perry Kendall said the flu causes by far the most deaths among vaccine-preventable diseases, outpacing all others combined.

Miramichi Leader Wed Aug 26 2015

Wearing their now-familiar red shirts and clutching makeshift candles made of Tim Hortons cups and whatever else they could find, nearly 200 unionized workers, mostly from the city's two nursing homes and the Miramichi Regional Hospital, lined up along Water Street in Chatham Head Monday night to rally against further privatization in the public sector. The candlelight vigil was organized by Kevin Driscoll, the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 865, which represents hospital staff in Miramichi.

A number of other locals joined in on the demonstration, including representation from CUPE 1277 and 1256 of the Miramichi Senior Citizens Home and Mount St. Joseph Nursing Home, respectively, CUPE 1190, which acts on behalf New Brunswick's highway workers, the New Brunswick Federation of Labour and staff from Hebert's Recycling. Driscoll, who works as a nursing unit clerk at the Miramichi Regional Hospital, said that workers are growing more disenchanted by the day as the provincial government continues to give the private sector a greater role in its health care and senior care system. He said CUPE staff felt they had to do something to draw attention to these issues and, with the hospital serving as the backdrop as night fell on the city Monday night, everyone agreed that gathering on the side of the road by candlelight would help convey their message.

The Timmins Daily Press Wed Aug 24 2016

How did it ever come to this? How did supposedly intelligent men and women, given the responsibility for running our health-care system, allow things to deteriorate so badly? More importantly, how did we-the public-allow ourselves to be duped all these years by spineless, self-serving politicians?

Earlier this year, an Ontario teenager, Laura Hillier, died while waiting for a stem-cell transplant. She was only 18 years old, and had her whole life ahead of her. Unfortunately for Laura, she made the mistake of getting sick in Ontario, a province where-like most of the rest of Canada- we've had our heads buried in the sand for far too long when it comes to how we fund our health-care system. This young girl died, not because they couldn't find a donor-there actually was one-but because those in charge couldn't find a way to fund the procedure that would have saved her life.

National Post Tue Aug 23 2016

Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is planning to expand its growing presence in the health care industry, proposing a $170 million, all-cash friendly bid to buy a B.C.-based company that develops electronic medical record technology. The country's largest food retailer offered $3.10 cash per share for Kelowna-based QHR Corp. - or 22 per cent over the stock's price on the TSX Venture Exchange at Friday's close - saying it will be a "natural complement" to its Shoppers Drug Mart division. Loblaw purchased Shoppers, Canada's largest retail network of pharmacies, in 2014 for $12.4 billion. A shareholder vote on the QHR deal will require two-thirds approval, and is expected to take place at a QHR special shareholder meeting in October. It already has the approval of QHR's board of directors.

QHR chief executive Mike Checkley said exclusive negotiations began two weeks ago following an unsolicited offer from Loblaw. "We weren't out to sell the company," he said on an investor conference call. "What came across the table we felt was very fair and we feel this is absolutely the right arrangement for us and our customers." The deal does allow QHR to consider other offers, and comes with a $6-million break fee if one is accepted. If approved, the acquisition would give Loblaw a foothold with the 7,700 health care providers QHR currently supports with its suite of electronic medical records technology - that business accounts for 20 per cent of the Canadian electronic health record market, which is worth approximately $350 million per year, according to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Ralph Garcea.

by Sophia Ikura, Christopher Doig & Andreas Laupacis (Show all posts by Sophia Ikura, Christopher Doig & Andreas Laupacis) February 6, 2014

Unions oppose mandatory vaccination policies

ONA representative Vicki McKenna

Dr. Danielle Martin touts benefits of Canada's system in Washington

Mar 13, 2014

As the debate about Obamacare rages on in the United States, a Toronto doctor calmly defended her country’s health-care system before a partisan U.S. Senate committee in Washington this week and explained that the single-payer model is not to blame for wait times — and that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not a socialist.

Nurses strike back The Sarnia Observer Thu Dec 12 2013

Ontario's nurses union has declared war on hospitals that require nurses to get a flu shot or wear a mask. The Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) is running radio ads in cities whose hospitals stepped up efforts to get staff vaccinated before the flu season peaks, something that could happen as soon as the holidays. The campaign stunned public health officials and hospital leaders who say the nurses' union is distorting the truth and threatening people's health across the province.

Confirmed cases hit 290, according to World Health Organization

Apr 19, 2014

It's beginning to feel like SARS revisited. For some of the scientists and doctors who helped the world battle the 2003 SARS outbreak, the recent rapid rise in human infections in several Middle Eastern countries caused by a cousin virus is creating a sense of sharp unease. Cases of Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome — MERS — have shot up markedly in the past month, driven it appears by outbreaks in hospitals or among health-care workers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

A health care worker in Grand Forks is the first person fired under a new B.C. policy that forces health workers to get a flu shot or wear a protective mask around patients.

The 49-year-old had held a permanent part-time position as an adult day program worker in Grand Forks, but said he refused instructions from his bosses at the Interior Health Authority to either get vaccinated for influenza or wear a mask at work.

“I don’t believe you should do things just because somebody tells you,” Hoekstra said in an interview Wednesday. “We should be able to think for ourselves, we should be able to make those decisions. I’ve worked in health care since the early 80s. You’d think we should be a little bit more enlightened but we’re not.”

15 May 2014

NEW MARYLAND, N.B. - The prime minister says he has no plans to reopen the abortion debate after the Liberals asked Ottawa to intervene to determine whether New Brunswick's regulations governing access to the procedure violate the Canada Health Act.Stephen Harper says the administration of health care is within provincial jurisdiction.Harper made the remarks after an announcement in New Brunswick, where the issue of abortion access has flared up in recent weeks.The Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton is planning to close at the end of July, and three Liberal MPs say the province's refusal to fund the facility may not be in line with the Health Act's accessibility principle.The source of contention is a provincial regulation that requires women who want publicly funded abortions to have them done at two approved hospitals and only after they get approval from two doctors certifying it is medically necessary.Harper also said the Conservatives understand that Canadians have different views on abortion.The remarks were a shot at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who has taken a strong stance in favour of abortion rights, requiring potential candidates to support the party's position in any vote on the issue in the House of Commons.

Toronto Star Sat May 9 2015

Roushad Omar-Ali is relaxing on his comfy sectional watching a cooking show as the doorbell rings and Lesley Rodway lets herself in. "How are you feeling today?" the registered nurse asks cheerily as she studies the chart with his health data. "She's pretty good at what she does," Omar-Ali offers when Rodway disappears to set up his dialysis machine in the bedroom. The Ajax resident has had his share of hospital stays for a stroke, a bad fall and a pacemaker implant. And there's no doubt where he'd rather be for his daily dialysis treatment.

The good thing about this is you get to hook yourself up whenever you want," he says. "At the hospital, you sit there and wait and wait whereas at home, as soon as it's done, I disconnect myself." It's thanks to nurses like Rodway that Omar-Ali can be treated in the comfort and convenience of his own home. Arranged through Community Care Access Centres (CCAC), government-funded visits by registered nurses and registered practical nurses provide a range of services including post-surgical, wound and palliative care, IV antibiotics, dressing changes and cancer treatment. (University-educated RNs care for patients with more complex needs while RPNs, who have attended community college, take on less complex cases.) "Patients don't really want to be in hospital," says Dianne Martin, executive director of the Registered Practical Nurses' Association of Ontario (RPNAO). "At home it feels good, they feel in control and more like they're in the driver's seat." They tend to heal faster and are safer from infections, Martin adds. It is also far cheaper to treat someone at home: an average of $42 per visit compared to $842 per day for a hospital bed.

The Globe and Mail Mon Apr 27 2015

t was Feb. 20, 2014, and the medical director of Prince Edward Island's largest hospital was preparing to present a business case for abortion services to an independent medical advisory body for PEI, the only province in Canada where women still cannot get a surgical abortion. Then, Rosemary Henderson's phone rang: a call from Health PEI CEO Richard Wedge, telling her the health authority had been "explicitly told to cease work on the abortion project," Dr. Henderson wrote in an e-mail less than two weeks later. "I ignored that and took it to PMAC [the Provincial Medical Advisory Committee] anyway and have finished off my part of it and sent it up the chain. ... So it may die there." Dr. Henderson's prediction proved correct. The Liberal government of former premier Robert Ghiz killed the plan that she and a Health PEI-led working group had crafted for a twicemonthly abortion clinic at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, according to documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws.

octors are staging a one-day strike to highlight violence against physicians after a gunman shot a medic dead on Friday.

New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal Wed Aug 26 2015

miramichi * Wearing their now-familiar red shirts and clutching makeshift candles made of Tim Hortons cups and whatever else they could find, nearly 200 unionized workers, mostly from the city's two nursing homes and the Miramichi Regional Hospital, lined up along Water Street in Chatham Head Monday night to rally against further privatization in the public sector. The candlelight vigil was organized by Kevin Driscoll, the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 865, which represents hospital staff in Miramichi.

Driscoll, who works as a nursing unit clerk at the Miramichi Regional Hospital, said that workers are growing more disenchanted by the day as the provincial government continues to give the private sector a greater role in its health care and senior care system. He said CUPE staff felt they had to do something to draw attention to these issues and, with the hospital serving as the backdrop as night fell on the city Monday night, everyone agreed that gathering on the side of the road by candlelight would help convey their message. "It shows that people here really care about the Miramichi and it's too bad that politicians don't care about it as much," Driscoll said. "They want to privatize the nursing homes, they want to cut to the Education Department, their cutting the highway budgets and they're cutting to every service they can think of, so where are we going to go? They don't seem to think that matters."

by Will Falk (Show all posts by Will Falk) May 27, 2015

This is the “sharing economy”.

An under-appreciated feature of the return of sharing, however, is the impact on government— not only as regulator, but also as a deliverer of public services. Though a strict definition of the sharing economy does not translate perfectly into publicly provided programming, its key principles— creating trust through feedback, community collaboration, scheduling efficiency, asset optimization, and payment settlement— are well-suited to entrepreneurialism in public sector delivery models, including in healthcare.

The Pembroke Observer Thu Sep 3 2015

OTTAWA -- Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair found themselves in unfamiliar economic territory Wednesday -- sharing the same page on when they think it is acceptable to plunge the country into a deficit. The Conservative and New Democrat leaders, along with their Liberal counterpart Justin Trudeau, still expressed sharp differences on the economic way forward following Statistics Canada's recession pronouncement a day earlier.

The three federal leaders attempted to put a bit more flesh on the bones of their respective economic positions after the agency reported on Tuesday that the economy had contracted for a second straight quarter--the technical definition of a recession. But as they dealt with the fallout from the data, it was Harper and Mulcair who found themselves occupying the same position on an important, related question: When is it OK to run a deficit?

Vancouver Sun Thu Jul 30 2015

The Green Party didn't attract much attention Tuesday with its call for a national Pharmacare program. Pity. Because, despite the conventional view that Canada can't afford to subsidize medications for all its citizens, growing evidence suggests it may be the other way round - that we can't afford not to. The first hint is that everybody else - well, almost everybody - does it. Among the 33 developed countries that make up the OECD, only the U.S. provides a lower percentage of its citizens with a public drug plan. And only Mexico is close to Canada's second-worst, 50-per-cent level. Every other country covers at least 80 per cent, and two-thirds cover 100 per cent. If small economies like Slovenia and Portugal - not to mention big ones like the U.K. and Germany - find this worthwhile and affordable, maybe Canada would too.

Secondly, past studies have found that 10 per cent of Canadians can't afford to take their medications as prescribed, and a new survey suggests the number may be higher still, especially in B.C. An Angus Reid Institute poll released this month found 19 per cent of British Columbians get no help from private or public insurance plans to pay for prescriptions, and nearly half are stuck with at least half the cost. As well, 29 per cent - six percentage points higher than the national average, and 10 points higher than in Quebec, which has the most comprehensive provincial Pharmacare program - have at least one family member who didn't fill a prescription, or skipped doses, or cut pills in half to save money.

July 10, 2015

Riche was a provincial Supreme Court judge, appointed to the bench in 1982. He retired in 1999. In April, he was appointed to report on the RCMP’s investigation into the death of Don Dunphy, who was shot and killed in his home by a member of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

The 67-page RFP was issued by government June 30, indicating contractors/operators will be sought to add 120 beds in Corner Brook at a site to be purchased from the Western Regional Health Authority at fair market value — 70 beds in Gander, 50 beds in Grand Falls-Windsor and 120 beds somewhere on the Northeast Avalon.

The Globe and Mail Tue Sep 15 2015

One of Canada's most prominent hospitals has launched a probe into the conduct of a top executive after a Globe and Mail investigation uncovered his involvement in a scheme to defraud a Toronto university. Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital said it is reviewing the tenure of Vas Georgiou - a senior executive hired in 2013 to oversee construction of the hospital's planned $300-million patient centre. The hospital said it was unaware when it hired Mr. Georgiou that, when he was working for Infrastructure Ontario, he had issued false invoices that were used in a kickback scheme at York University.

As a result of The Globe's inquiries, Infrastructure Ontario will also conduct an examination of Mr. Georgiou's six years at the provincial government procurement agency. One reason St. Michael's was unaware of Mr. Georgiou's involvement in the York fraud, The Globe's investigation has determined, is that, although at least one Infrastructure Ontario official knew about it, that information apparently was not shared with anyone. The hiring of Mr. Georgiou raises questions about whether former executives of Ontario's procurement agency withheld this vital information from officials who ought to have known - including Infrastructure Ontario's own board of directors.