News/Canada/Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan adults might not have sufficient immunity to the latest measles outbreak and are being asked to check their vaccination records and get a booster shot if needed.Cases of measles, which is highly contagious and can lead to serious complications, have been on the rise across Canada recently and there were three cases in Saskatchewan in March.Although the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) is recommending people check their vaccination records, there is one catch — the SHA doesn't have childhood immunization records for anyone prior to 1978."It can be really confusing if you don't have access to those records," said Ryan Meili, a family doctor practicing in Saskatoon. "Maybe you have a history of being told when you were a kid you had measles, but it was never documented." Boost...

Dr. Alex Wong vividly remembers the night, five years ago, when he read modelling data about the potential surge of COVID-19 positive patients in Saskatchewan. His kids were sleeping peacefully, unaware of what was coming."[It] basically showed that we were going to get crushed, like the system was going to get crushed," he said, revealing that he and many others felt a deep-seated fear and anxiety about what was to come. "I read that and I just felt this horrible pit in my stomach."COVID-19 hit Saskatchewan in the spring of 2020, with the province announcing its first case on March 12.It was the start of an exhausting journey for health-care workers, who say they're still trying to recover from the toll it took on them.Dr. Alex Wong is a Regina infectious diseases specialist, who advocate...

This First Person column is the experience of Ken Pilon, who lives in Regina. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.It seems like I've been cheating the Grim Reaper my whole life. I was 11 months old when I almost died due to dehydration. At 19, I was in a four-car pile-up on a highway, and then I had cancer at age 45. But no experience reshaped my life or my outlook quite as much as learning that seizures had been hijacking my brain for years, and no one knew  — that was, until I blew through a red light on a trip out-of-town for a comedy show.  That's the last thing I remember before I woke up six hours later in the emergency room, only to hear that I'd had a very serious and potentially lethal grand mal epileptic seizure. I was 51 at the time.Brain se...

When Kwaku Ayisi lost a friend who hadn't even reached 40 to breast cancer, it inspired him to look at the barriers Black women face in Saskatchewan's breast-health system.Ayisi, a researcher at the University of Regina, saw that Black women had much higher breast cancer mortality rates and wanted to know why.He found that Black women are more likely to get breast cancer earlier in life, more prone to aggressive forms and have a higher mortality rate.Ayisi also found a lot of systemic barriers: language, cultural beliefs and a lack of education on breast cancer.Disproportionate consequencesThe Canadian Cancer Society said a recent study found Black women in Canada are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age, more likely to be diagnosed at advanced stages and more li...