News/Canada/British Columbia

A mother on Vancouver Island is warning people to double check their prescriptions after she was accidentally dispensed the powerful opioid hydromorphone instead of her son's regular ADHD medication. Comox, B.C., resident Sarah Paquin, 31, says she still shudders to think about what could have happened to her nine-year-old son had her husband not noticed the medication looked different before he gave it to him. "It was terrifying," Paquin said, standing in her front yard and playing with one of her three boys. "One simple little mistake like that could have ended horribly."WATCH | 9-year-old dispensed opioid in pharmacy mix-up: Pharmacy mix-up leaves child with hydromorphone pillsA mother on Vancouver Island is warning people to check their prescriptions very carefully after a close call f...

The British Columbia government has created 18 new beds dedicated to long-term involuntary care at a Metro Vancouver mental health facility.The new beds at Alouette Homes in Maple Ridge, B.C., are designed for people who need involuntary care under the Mental Health Act outside the criminal justice system, Health Minister Josie Osborne told a news conference on Tuesday."I want to be clear that while Alouette Homes is located next to the Alouette Correctional Centre, it is not the same as the involuntary care beds that were opened last month at the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre," Osborne said."Those were beds designed specifically for individuals in custody, but Alouette Homes is different. It's for people living with complex mental health disorders who need long-term therapeutic care in ...

The B.C. Crown corporation that oversees the care of developmentally disabled people will have its home-share program independently reviewed after an inquest into a starvation death earlier this year.Florence Girard, a woman with Down syndrome, weighed about 50 pounds when she died in 2018 in the Port Coquitlam home of Astrid Dahl, a caregiver funded through Crown corporation Community Living B.C. (CLBC).After the week-long inquest into Girard's death in January, a jury made 11 recommendations to CLBC, including better pay for front-line caregivers and changes to support family members of a vulnerable individual who want to care for their relative in their home. CLBC, the corporation that oversees the care of developmentally disabled people, was created in 2005. It is in charge of caring f...

A Charter challenge to B.C.'s Mental Health Act, over a provision that groups say denies patients the ability to consent to treatment, is now being heard in B.C. Supreme Court nearly a decade after it was first filed.The challenge, filed by the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and other plaintiffs, was first made in 2016 over the act's "deemed consent" provision, which states that anyone with involuntary status under the law is presumed to have agreed to psychiatric treatment.The first hearing day was Thursday, and those involved say it's likely to continue for several weeks.Supporters of the challenge say that deemed consent removes safeguards that ensure a patient is being treated humanely, and violates the Charter's rights to life, liberty and security for everyone.They argue that...

Price Carter is planning to die this summer.The 68-year-old has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He knows it will take his life eventually; before it does, he intends to die on his own terms with his family at his side."I was told at the outset, 'This is palliative care, there is no cure for this.' So that made it easy," he said in an interview from his home in Kelowna, B.C.Carter said he's always known that medical assistance in dying would be an option "that I would exercise if I could, if needed to."He has that option, in large part, because of his mother.Lee Carter, daughter of Kay Carter, speaks at a press conference on doctor-assisted death legislation, Bill C-14, while her brother, Price Carter, listens on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in April 2016. Lee and Price led the ...

Edgewood, B.C. isn't usually the sort of place that would be on the radar of high-ranking White House officials. On the west shore of Lower Arrow Lake and surrounded by the Monashee Mountains, it's a roughly 200-kilometre drive from Kelowna, B.C., on a winding road. An unincorporated community, the latest census put it at a population of 235 people working in farming, forestry and tourism.But since December 2024, it's been making international headlines over the fate of a group of ostriches living on one particular farm near the end of a rural road: Universal Ostrich, owned by Karen Espersen and Dave Bilinski and whose spokesperson is Katie Pasitney, Espersen's daughter.In December, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) officials were tipped off that some of the large birds on the farm ha...

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says that an ostrich farm is facing a $20,000 fine over failure to quarantine and cull its birds.In a statement released May 30, the agency said Universal Ostrich Farm has failed to follow federal regulations, including not reporting the initial cases of illness and death at their farm, and failing to adhere to quarantine orders."Universal Ostrich Farm was issued two notices of violations with penalty, totaling $20,000," the statement says, though it does not say when the fines were issued.The in-depth statement provides more details about the CFIA's inspection of the farm dating back to December 2024 and comes as U.S. officials, including health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, have weighed in on the case, urging Canadian offici...

Doctors in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) are warning that the maternity ward is on the verge of collapse amid a shortage of family physicians. A joint statement from all nine members of the department issued Thursday said that "without immediate action from health authorities and government decision-makers, the safety of patients and newborns is at serious risk.""Due to a critical shortage of family physicians willing or able to provide this care— worsened by a failure to recruit replacements—our hospital is facing a collapse of its primary maternity care coverage as early as June 1, 2025."This means that many pregnant patients may arrive at the hospital in labour with no doctor available to provide safe, continuous care during delivery."The ...

Nick Bordignon was still deep in grief over the death of his infant daughter last October when an envelope from the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) turned up in his mailbox.It was addressed to the infant he and his wife had named Makayla Poppy when she was delivered at B.C. Children's Hospital four weeks earlier following an ultrasound that showed the child was dead.Inside was an invoice for the cost of an autopsy and an itemized list of tests conducted by a coroner — a bill the PHSA has since admitted the Bordignons were never supposed to see.And to make matters worse, the letter seemed to indicate Makayla's body was still in the morgue — two weeks after the autopsy was performed and nearly a month after she was stillborn.Nick Bordignon shows the bill he received for his still...

Canada's minister of agriculture says a group of B.C. ostriches will "not necessarily" be killed, despite an order from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) that they be culled due to concerns about the avian flu.On Wednesday, reporters in Ottawa asked Heath MacDonald, the minister of agriculture and agri-food, about the fate of the ostriches, after high-ranking U.S. officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., publicly called for the herd to be spared."We're in a process," MacDonald said. "We're taking all facts into consideration. And we'll move forward on the best possible solution for everybody involved."Asked directly if the birds would be killed, he said, "The process is in place. And not necessarily."WATCH | Dr. Oz, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wade into B.C. ostrich...