Hundreds of Indigenous patients in B.C. have been using a new online tool to anonymously report the racism they’ve experienced within the health-care system. The initial demand for the tool has been so high that creators are aiming to expand the platform across the country next year.
In Canada, between March 2020 and February 2021, more than 80,000 residents and staff members of long-term care homes were infected with the coronavirus. Outbreaks occurred in 2,500 care homes, resulting in the deaths of 14,000 residents, according to the report.
Dr. Eileen De Villa, Toronto’s chief public health officer, rarely if ever errs on the side of incaution. So it was interesting this week to see her suggest lightening up a bit. She said the city should remain in “lockdown,” as the province calls the package of restrictions currently in effect in Toronto and several other Ontario jurisdictions. But she recommended some tweaks to the “lockdown” rules. Outdoor activities such as patio dining and group exercise might be fine, she averred.
Dr. Spot, a dog-like mobile robot programmed to triage hospital patients, is the newest front-line health-care worker to join the fight against COVID-19.
Grandma is going to freak out.
Nearly one in two employees in some nursing homes has still not completed their consent form for vaccination, according to the most recent data from the association that represents the province’s nursing homes.
A new Statistics Canada report that highlights delayed cancer screenings, mental health woes and the damage caused to low-income Canadians is a damning indictment on the many voices who called for ever-tighter lockdowns without appropriate concern for the harms that they were inflicting on their fellow Canadians.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated and brought to light issues with Canada’s long-term care facilities, wreaking havoc on residents and exposing poor conditions and care, leaving some seniors actively looking at living at home longer.
Maybe you have noticed the rise in public incredulity toward the coronavirus narrative that you hear all day from the mainstream media. More doubts. More opposition. More protests. And far less trust. You are hardly alone. What began as a spark in the Spring of 2020 is now a raging fire. Try as they might to put it out, it is burning hotter and higher than ever before.
“When COVID emerged, governments postponed hundreds of thousands of non-COVID surgeries, procedures and consultations with specialists,” said SecondStreet.org President Colin Craig.
The Yellow Card scheme tracking potential vaccine injuries has flagged a combined 191,832 individual adverse events, or side effects, related to COVID vaccines.
Three-quarters of Canadians think the high number of deaths in long-term care (LTC) homes during the COVID-19 pandemic could have been reduced if governments had acted sooner, according to a recent survey. Since the start of the pandemic, the virus rampaged through many of these facilities causing high levels of infection and death.
An Ontario doctor has been cautioned by the College of Physicians and Surgeons for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns that could put the public at risk.
Dr. Kulvinder Gill was issued three cautions for “inappropriate” and “unprofessional” statements she posted on social media claiming that neither lockdowns nor vaccines were necessary.
On Twitter, the Brampton doctor had claimed there was “absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful and illogical lockdown,” the college wrote in its decision.
If I lived in Ontario, I’d be switching to her tomorrow.
Crevatin said her mother was escorted out of the hospital by security after a nurse “caught” her reaching out to hold her husband’s hand shortly after the move to the fifth floor.
“Most of the nurses in that unit were fantastic and very understanding, but there was a couple that were very into just …following the rules,” she said.
“They’ve been married for 60 years. It’s very hard for my mother not to hold his hand, not to go up close to him, to touch him — especially since that’s our only form of communication with him.”
When the nurse asked her mother to return to her chair, two metres away, she did but Crevatin said two security guards were still called and they escorted her mother out of the hospital.
A team of researchers from the Montreal Heart Institute believes they have found an effective weapon against COVID-19: colchicine, an oral tablet already known and used for other diseases.
For Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, who led the study, this is a “major scientific discovery” and colchicine is the first “effective oral drug to treat out-of-hospital patients.”
“To be able to offer this, from Quebec, and for the planet, we are very happy,” said Tardif.
Kristen Nagle, who worked in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), made headlines earlier this month following a trip across the border that went against Canadian government directives to avoid non-essential travel.
