News/Health

Ontario hospitals paid for-profit staffing agencies $9.2 billion over a decade, a finding that comes as one hospital aims to stop its use of temp services by September.The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives commissioned Monday's report, titled Hollowed Out: Ontario Public Hospitals and the Rise of Private Staffing Agencies. It focused on increased spending on the agencies for nurses, allied health professionals and administrative support staff from 2013-14 to 2022-23.Hospitals and long-term care homes turn to staffing agencies when they can't fill all of their shifts with employees. Temporary agency health-care workers allow them to continue providing services during staff shortages, although they charge up to triple the regularly hour rate, hospitals have said.Real spending on agenci...

This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.Despite a rule that requires sex and gender to be considered when funding medical research in Canada, new research shows the number of grants for women's health studies hasn't budged in five years, something doctors say has serious implications for their patients.The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has mandated the inclusion of sex and gender as criteria for awarding grants since 2010. Despite that, a group of researchers found in 2023 that less than six per cent of Canadian health research funding went to women's health. Now, their new study is also analyzing how na...

U.S. and European health regulators are warning the public of possible health risks linked to finasteride, a popular hair-loss drug. The European Medicines Agency issued an alert on Thursday, stating it had confirmed suicidal thoughts as a side effect of finasteride tablets. The European regulator announced it would be implementing new measures to warn and protect the public. This comes following an alert issued by U.S. health regulators in late April, which warned against the possibility of sexual dysfunction and depression linked to topical finasteride — a newer version of the medication that's applied directly to the skin. "There is no FDA-approved topical formulation of finasteride," the agency said in the alert, adding that the safety, effectiveness, or quality of these products has n...

Going to the doctor can involve sharing your most personal information, including details about your health, medical history and prescriptions. It all ends up in your medical record — but a new study by researchers at Women's College Hospital in Toronto found that in some cases, private companies are accessing parts of that data and selling it to pharmaceutical companies. "This is really an area where we need transparency," said the study's lead author, Dr. Sheryl Spithoff.The study, published in JAMA Network Open, examined how the medical record industry works in Canada and how patient data flows between different private entities.  Through a series of 19 interviews, the researchers concluded "chains of for-profit primary care clinics, physicians, commercial data brokers and pharmaceutica...

Rebecca Archer lovingly places a pair of small glasses on a shelf filled with memorabilia like trinkets and photos. They belonged to her 10-year-old daughter, Renae, who suddenly died after a measles infection."She was just really intelligent. Just a really happy child, always smiling," she remembers.Renae was just five months old when she got the measles – too young to be vaccinated, but unable to avoid being exposed during an outbreak in Manchester, England, in 2013.The infant was hospitalized, but recovered. For the next 10 years, Renae had no other medical issues, her mom says. Renae Archer was an infant when she was infected with measles: too young to be vaccinated against the virus, but unable to avoid the outbreak in Manchester, England, where her family lives. (Submitted by Rebecc...

It's hard to believe opioid deaths are dropping when you're walking on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, where B.C.'s drug crisis is most visible.Open drug use is still common and on a dry day, you can count on seeing dozens of people unconscious on the sidewalk.But the numbers don't lie: overdose deaths in 2024 decreased 12 per cent in B.C. and across the country compared to the previous 12 months, according to January data from the province and March data from Health Canada. The epidemic has killed 50,928 Canadians since 2016 — that's all the seats in Rogers Stadium in Toronto, and then some. According to Health Canada, 21 people a day, on average, die from toxic drugs in this country.But the declines mark a small but distinct shift in the country's overdose epidemic, which was officially d...

JAMP Pharma Corp. says it is recalling one lot of its pregabalin pain medication because some bottles labelled to contain 50-milligram capsules may contain 150-milligram capsules instead.The mislabelled product could lead to patients receiving a much larger dose than prescribed, which could result in an overdose and "pose serious, potentially fatal health risks," Health Canada said in a public advisory. JAMP-Pregabalin is a prescription drug used in adults to treat pain caused by nerve damage due to diabetes, shingles or spinal cord injury, as well as pain associated with fibromyalgia.Symptoms of pregabalin overdose may include sudden mood changes, sleepiness, confusion, depression, agitation, restlessness and seizures, the regulator said.Taking too much pregabalin while also taking drugs ...

JAMP Pharma Corp. says it is recalling one lot of JAMP-Pregabalin pain medication because some bottles labelled to contain 50-milligram capsules may contain 150-milligram capsules instead.The mislabelled product could lead to patients receiving a much larger dose than prescribed, which could result in an overdose and "pose serious, potentially fatal health risks," Health Canada said in a public advisory. JAMP-Pregabalin is a prescription drug used in adults to treat pain caused by nerve damage due to diabetes, shingles or spinal cord injury, as well as pain associated with fibromyalgia.The 150-milligram capsule of JAMP-Pregabalin is white with “PG” and “150” printed on it in black ink. (Health Canada)Symptoms of pregabalin overdose may include sudden mood changes, sleepiness, confusion, d...

This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.Doctors are urging public health officials in Ontario and Alberta to step up vaccination and messaging efforts as measles outbreaks in those provinces continue to grow. Ontario reported 223 new confirmed and probable infections of measles over the past week. As of May 2, a total of 210 confirmed measles cases were reported to Alberta Health."That's the largest single week increase since the outbreak began in October of 2024," said Dr. Sarah Wilson, a public health physician with Public Health Ontario."A lot of important developments in the last week, unfortunately."The bulk of Ont...

People flourish when all major aspects of their life are good, but a new global study suggests that isn't the case for young adults in many high-income countries.That surprised the study's co-lead. Based on previous research in the field, Tyler VanderWeele of Harvard University says he was expecting middle-aged people to report to feeling worse about their physical and mental health, relationships, income, work and more.Not necessarily so, according to the 200,000 adults in 22 countries who responded to the Global Flourishing Study, the results of which were published in Wednesday's issue of the journal Nature Mental Health"Perhaps one of the more troubling features of this data is that we find when we aggregate across the 22 countries, flourishing tends to increase with age so that the yo...