Archive for the ‘Health’ Category
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 »
Police shouldn’t be answering mental-health calls
Thursday, June 25th, 2020
At this point… there’s no excuse for politicians to refuse to act… there are models elsewhere that could usefully provide direction. One that’s receiving lots of attention… involves teams of medical professionals and crisis workers responding directly to calls involving people in mental crisis, and rarely has to resort to police backup.
Tags: mental Health, multiculturalism
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario to fully fund nursing homes despite lower occupancies
Wednesday, June 24th, 2020
Restricting admissions to single- and double-occupancy rooms will exacerbate a chronic shortage of long-term care beds in Ontario… the government’s ban on new admissions to ward rooms will eliminate 4,303 beds, representing 5.5 per cent of the province’s total… those who no longer need acute care but have nowhere else to go, reached a historic high of 5,300 as of Monday.
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, housing, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
We need to take Canada’s approach to drug addiction and burn it to the ground
Friday, June 19th, 2020
… as policies go, prohibition and jail time have been utter failures as deterrents. Mr. Perrin, the author of Overdose: Heartbreak and Hope in Canada’s Opioid Crisis, released this year, says politics – fear of a backlash from the electorate – have made our leaders afraid to do the right thing… this has allowed “an unregulated criminal underworld to dictate what is in the drugs that people are taking, forcing those people to play Russian roulette”
Tags: crime prevention, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Let’s face it, Canada: Even drinking in moderation can be dangerous
Tuesday, June 16th, 2020
Alcohol is a health disaster in Canada… In 2017, alcohol put as many people in hospital as heart attacks did, and 13 times as many people as opioids did. And we haven’t even touched on social ills such as drunk driving, domestic violence and absenteeism in the workplace… At the same time, Canadians are getting mixed signals on booze: from health experts, from their governments and from society.
Tags: Health
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Why for-profit nursing home operators will likely leave the sector of their own accord
Tuesday, June 9th, 2020
Reinventing LTC means a restoration of the minimum staffing levels scrapped by the Mike Harris government in the 1990s. It means replacing or retrofitting nursing homes according to 21st century design standards. It means “in-sourcing” housekeeping, cooking and other services that have been outsourced to part-time and casual workers and contractors, the use of which impairs teamwork and continuity of care… What’s required is a multibillion-dollar megaproject.
Tags: budget, Health, housing, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
It’s time to expand Canadian medicare, and make it truly universal
Saturday, June 6th, 2020
Canadians have cradle-to-grave insurance for services from a doctor or hospital. But dentistry? Drugs? No. Denticare and pharmacare aren’t part of medicare… Getting to truly universal health insurance, covering all required health services, doesn’t necessarily mean doing it on medicare’s government-runs-it-all model. A number of countries with more extensive and successful health systems rely on a regulated private sector to ensure that everyone is covered.
Tags: Health, ideology, participation, pharmaceutical, poverty, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
No more studies are needed to fix long-term care. We already know the answers
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020
… salaries of all staff in long-term-care facilities should be reviewed. It is imperative that staff particularly personal support workers, health aides, cleaners and food preparation staff be paid adequately. They must not be forced to work in more than one facility in order to earn a decent wage. They are providing care to our vulnerable Canadians. They have a right to expect that we show that we value the work they do by ensuring a good wage.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, standard of living, women
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Canada’s soldiers have provided a wake-up call for our long-term care system
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
Our inaction, founded in deep societal ageism and persistent under-funding, cumulatively sowed the seeds of the tragedy we have been witnessing. Canada currently spends, on average, 30 per cent less of its gross domestic product on long-term care than the other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, and prioritizes its limited funds on warehousing older adults rather than helping them stay in their own homes.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Counterpoint: Protect our domestic supply by shutting down the paid-plasma industry
Tuesday, May 12th, 2020
The fact that the federal government gave blood brokers licenses to export plasma out of cash-strapped New Brunswick and Saskatchewan has been nothing less of an embarrassing policy blunder — one that was based on the fundamental lie: that blood brokers would contribute to our national blood supply. They do not. The fact is that the private paid-plasma model is being systematically abandoned throughout the world.
Tags: globalization, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
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