Expanded prescribing powers for nurses makes sense
Tuesday, March 12th, 2024
Expanding prescribing powers to nurses will not present the same kinds of concerns as expanding to pharmacists did. Nurses work in clinics that have privacy, and they lack potential financial conflicts of interest. Plus, they’re currently limited to very routine prescriptions, so the danger of a blown diagnosis is minimal… the goal is not leaving any to suffer for lack of access to a safe, proven treatment. And that is absolutely the status quo that already exists today for millions.
Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
How will Canada expand a health-care system that’s already struggling?
Saturday, September 10th, 2022
Everyone should have access to routine dental care and vision care and necessary medications — and other things, like mental-health supports and physiotherapy… This is important on humanitarian grounds. It would also, though, optimize the primary-care system: a person who is kept out of hospital by proper dental care means one more bed available for someone who truly needs it.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, participation, pharmaceutical, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Trying to avert two Ontario child-welfare deaths a week
Friday, July 31st, 2020
… in 2016, 121 children or youth involved in the system, including those who recently aged out, had died. In 2017, it was 126, in 2018 it was 126 again, and in 2019, 99… But some of the issues… are much broader than those in the child-welfare system. Data is siloed in ways that complicate co-ordination and planning… There are major regional inequalities in available services… “The pandemic really highlighted some of the long-standing issues in the system”…
Tags: housing, Indigenous, mental Health, multiculturalism, youth
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
How does Ontario respond to people in crisis — and how should it?
Friday, June 26th, 2020
… a big part of this new model has to be better mental-health care in general, so fewer people end up getting to that crisis point in the first place. The current model produces tragic outcomes, yes, but it also doesn’t work for a lot of people who never have a tragic outcome, per se, but need help they don’t get. And this is especially true with racialized or otherwise marginalized communities.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, mental Health, multiculturalism
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario’s mental-health crisis, Part 3: Solving the problem will mean more beds — and more political will
Friday, December 13th, 2019
… on any given day, there are approximately 2,300 patients who are awaiting transfer to a more appropriate bed… Of these 2,300 patients, 9 per cent, or approximately 200 people, are awaiting transfer to a more appropriate care setting for a mental-health issue… The provincial government has pledged to do more for mental health and to expand the long-term-care system generally. But that will take years and sustained political will.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
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Ontario’s mental-health crisis, Part 2: The good, the bad, and the ugly of OHIP-covered care
Thursday, December 12th, 2019
Roughly 2 million Ontarians seek mental-health care each year… And the system is massively skewed by geographical constraints. A study in 2009, for example, found that, while there were 63 psychiatrists per 100,000 residents in the Toronto region, some remote parts of the province had barely four per 100,000 — a whopping fifteenfold difference… And timeliness matters.
Tags: jurisdiction, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Some good news for the west — you have more friends out east than you realize
Friday, October 25th, 2019
In Ontario, though the Liberals won more votes — just over 41% of the total — the Conservatives still had 2.25 million people vote for them… there are more Conservative voters in Ontario than Alberta and Saskatchewan combined… Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Ontario combined totalled 3,652,000 Tory voters. That’s more than double the rounded-up total for Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
State of emergency, Part 1: How to fix Ontario ERs? We ask a paramedic
Thursday, August 22nd, 2019
Once an ambulance loads a patient, the paramedic crew becomes responsible for that patient’s care, and they remain solely responsible for that patient until they are admitted by the ER. Non-urgent patients then wait on stretchers under the watchful gaze of well-trained paramedics, who are legally compelled to remain with them no matter how long it takes. Paramedic crews, and their valuable ambulances, can sit idle for many hours.
Tags: Health, mental Health
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Having better health care than the U.S. shouldn’t be good enough for Canadians
Sunday, July 7th, 2019
We need to stop settling for “better-than-America” and aim for “as good as much of Europe.” We also need to realize that there are ways to improve the system that are not either “just throw ever-more public dollars at the problems” and “burn medicare to the ground and pay for everything out of pocket.” If we ignore them while they’re still fixable — when the economy is good, there’s no weird epidemics afoot and the full impact of the upcoming demographic shift hasn’t yet hit — we’ll pay for it later.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, standard of living, tax
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
On the spectrum, Part 1: What makes the autism debate in Ontario so complicated
Wednesday, April 10th, 2019
“… now we realize it’s not a single gene. It’s maybe 200 genes.” Add to that the possibility that environmental factors may contribute to autism… and determining the possible causes of autism becomes even more complex… That leaves us, Hollander said, with only intensive, personalized therapy as a viable option for the children of today. And it’s also what brings us to the debate raging across Ontario.
Tags: disabilities, mental Health, participation
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
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