Health

The Alberta government is facing fierce and mounting opposition to plans that will reduce access to publicly funded COVID-19 vaccines in the provinceThe province announced late on Friday that it will limit funding of the COVID-19 shots to very specific high risk groups, including Albertans living in care homes and group settings, those receiving home care, people on social programs such as AISH, and immunocompromised individuals.Seniors living in the community, pregnant Albertans and health-care workers will have to pay out of pocket for the vaccine, along with the rest of the population. The province estimates the cost at $110 per dose."My dominant emotion is sadness because of the people who are going to be affected by this misguided policy," said Dr. James Talbot, a former provincial ch...

A physician advocacy organization is underscoring the role Manitoba employers can play in freeing up physicians to spend more time on patient care and less on paperwork by no longer requiring their workers to get sick notes.Eliminating sick notes in cases of short-term illness would add an equivalent of 50 doctors — or 300,000 more patient appointments — to Manitoba's health-care system per year, Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Nichelle Desilets said during a news conference Tuesday."Every sick note takes time away from patients who need medical care," Desilets said. "That's concerning, because Manitoba currently has the second-worst doctor shortage in the country."More than 600,000 sick notes are requested annually in Manitoba — many of which aren't medically necessary — and they cost taxp...

Health officials in British Columbia say there are 18 suspected and confirmed cases of measles in the northern region of the province as they continue to warn of the highly contagious disease circulating in a small community in the northeast.On Friday, Northern Health said they believed the disease was circulating in Wonowon, located around 90 kilometres northwest of Fort St. John.The B.C. Centre for Disease Control said Monday that seven cases have been confirmed through laboratory testing in the Northern Health region, and 11 cases are assumed to be measles due to reported symptoms and exposure.The 18 cases bring the total number of confirmed measles cases in B.C. this year to 30.Measles has been seeing a resurgence in Canada — particularly in Ontario, where officials have counted 2,118 ...

DNA testing company 23andMe didn't have adequate data protections and ignored warning signs ahead of a massive data breach almost two years ago, an investigation by Canada's privacy commissioner found.Commissioner Philippe Dufresne told reporters that proper protections were not in place in 2023 when hackers gained access to roughly 6.9 million profiles on the site — nearly half its client base."The breach serves as a cautionary tale for all organizations about the importance of data protections," Dufresne said during a news conference on Tuesday."With data breaches growing in severity and complexity — and ransomware and malware attacks rising sharply — any organization that is not taking steps to prioritize data protection and address these threats is increasingly vulnerable."Customer pro...

A major overhaul is expected of the national body that issues Canada's cancer screening guidelines.The changes were ordered by the federal health minister, following an external review of the Task Force on Preventive Health Care. The task force is an arm's-length panel set up by the federal government to publish national guidelines for family doctors, advising them on when to send their patients for routine screenings of various illnesses, including common cancers.But the panel has been criticized for years for failing to fully take in expert advice, using outdated research and being too slow to update its guidelines. Many of the task force's recommendations are over a decade old."Those cancer screenings translate into survival," said Dr. Anna Wilkinson, an Ottawa family physician who help...

The B.C. Supreme Court has certified a Canada-wide class-action lawsuit against consultancy firm McKinsey & Company as part of ongoing legal efforts by the province to recover health-care costs relating to the toxic drug crisis.In a judgment posted Friday, the province alleges the company advised opioid manufacturers and helped design advertising campaigns that led to the over-prescription of opioids.The class-action lawsuit sought by the provincial government — in which it would act as a lead plaintiff, on behalf of other provinces and the federal government — is closely related to another similar lawsuit that the province is pursuing against pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in the illicit drug crisis.The poisoned drug epidemic was declared a public health emergency in ...

On a Friday night in March 2019, Leon-Jamal Daniel Barrett concluded that humanity was corrupt and his only means to save it was by having "sexual congress" with a woman chosen by God.The fact Barrett took magic mushrooms in the hours before coming to this realization would later prove pivotal to his being found not guilty for what happened next."He waited at his house for this woman to come," wrote Surrey provincial court judge Timothy Hinkson."When she did not, he left his home, believing that if he walked anywhere, God would eventually bring them together."Intoxication to the point of 'automatism'Instead of a woman chosen by God, Barrett encountered a terrified stranger, who fought him as he knocked her to the ground, tried to kiss her and "smashed" her left breast before removing his c...

WARNING: This article references sexual abuse and may affect those who have experienced​ ​​​sexual violence or know someone impacted by it.In the depths of her addiction, Crystal Pickering thrived on chaos.   She started using drugs as a teenager to cope with childhood physical and sexual abuse. Growing up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., she says she wasn't encouraged to express her emotions, and the anger she felt had festered for years."I was a dealer. I did all that and it was the power of the chaos — I loved it," she said. "If I had the coke and the bags, I was the shit. If I was tough and I could beat up somebody. I was important."My aggressiveness was what made me who I was."But after years of working to get control of her life, she's set to finalize a remarkable personal achievement: get...

2 days agoNewsDuration 6:22Ontario currently has more measles cases than in all of the U.S. combined, and infections are climbing in Alberta and Manitoba. CBC’s Jennifer Yoon breaks down what’s behind the resurgence of a disease eliminated decades ago, and why those on the front line say it’s going to be really difficult to get this outbreak under control.

More than a year after Belleville, Ont., declared a state of emergency triggered by a spate of overdoses linked to the opioid epidemic, people at the heart of the crisis say the situation has gone from bad to worse. Brian Orford lives on Belleville's streets. He's among those who survived last year's batch of tainted drugs — fentanyl, often laced with benzodiazepines or animal tranquilizers. "I'm kind of bummed out because I'm here, I'm on the streets trying to push harder than ever to get a place and get work and everything again," said Orford. Orford said his girlfriend is pregnant and is staying in one of the very few shelter beds in town, while he sleeps behind the Salvation Army building. They are desperate for housing. "She's got a place to lay her head at night, but I'm still over h...