Health

Humber River Health is suing the consortium contracted to build and maintain its Toronto hospital for $100 million, alleging that negligent design and construction is creating health and safety problems for patients and staff.The lawsuit, filed in early April, alleges that a "sizable portion" of the hospital's floors are not level or flat and that some of the flooring itself is deteriorating. "Floor levelness is a critical operational and safety issue," reads Humber River Health's claim, filed in Ontario Superior Court. "Non-level floors make it difficult for staff to move equipment, supplies, food, and patients on wheeled transportation devices. Often, wheeled carts have to be placed behind rubber stoppers to prevent the carts from sliding out of position."The statement of claim goes on t...

James Smith woke up from a colonoscopy to be told devastating news. At 59, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Doctors found a mass so large it completely blocked their view of the rest of his colon. Smith said he was shocked."It was hard, it was a hard diagnosis," he said. "It was hard to believe it was actually happening."Smith underwent surgery and four rounds of chemotherapy. When his doctors suggested he join a study to examine regular exercise and its possible role in preventing cancer recurrence, he said yes. He was concerned — through the course of his treatment he had lost about 26 kilograms, as well as muscle mass. But he joined, anyway."At the beginning it was difficult, I won't deny. It was like, 'How am I going to do all this?'"Though he wasn't included in the final study, he ...

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...

A program aimed at ensuring vision problems aren't holding Nova Scotia's youngest students back has outfitted more than 20 children with free eyeglasses since launching in February.The Eye See, Eye Learn program is open to children in pre-primary or primary who have a valid Nova Scotia health card.Shawn Creelman is a parent of one of those kids. He said his family was informed about the program during a routine eye exam when they discovered their five-year-old son needed glasses."My wife and I are fortunate enough that we do have private insurance, but if a family didn't have that option, it's nice to know that children, especially school aged, have the opportunity to get glasses for free," Creelman said.The program already operates in a number of provinces, including throughout Atlantic C...

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 ...

You may be hearing a lot about the gut microbiome these days — it's been mentioned everywhere from wellness podcasts to the grocery aisle. Doctors are tapping into it to try and treat some diseases differently.The gut microbiome is the community of all the bacteria and viruses in our intestines, including friendlier microbes that promote health as well as some foes that can cause illness.One evolving procedure is the fecal transplant, where a small sample of stool from the colon of a healthy person is given to a recipient for therapeutic purposes. Despite the ick factor, they have been used to treat potentially fatal, recurring bacterial infections for which antibiotics have been less effective.Now, doctors and researchers are looking to see whether fecal transplants can be used for other ...

Many people with advanced prostate cancer are living much longer due to new treatments, leading prostate cancer doctors say. Though they're not often a cure, these innovations are turning a disease once considered a death sentence into a chronic illness that can be managed for years in some patients.Dr. Laurence Klotz, a urologic oncologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and chair of prostate cancer research at the Toronto hospital, said patients with metastatic prostate cancer — meaning it's spread to other parts of the body — live "roughly twice as long now as they did 10 or 15 years ago, which is really a significant achievement.""The disease can be controlled, often for a long time — but a cure is generally not in the cards," Klotz told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC podcast The ...

Doctors at a medical clinic in Kingsey Falls, a town in central Quebec, say they are contemplating closing their clinic and pivoting out of family practice — or Quebec altogether — if a bill allowing the province to regulate how physicians are paid is adopted as it is written.Bill 106, tabled earlier this month, would link up to 25 per cent of physicians' pay to their performance in an effort to get them to take on more patients.But in a statement posted to their social media, doctors at the Kingsey Falls medical clinic said the new rules would impose unattainable performance targets on them and reduce their ability to deliver quality care to patients. "We can't take on more patients if we don't have more resources or a system that's more efficient and productive to be able to take good ca...

A U.S. woman is suing seven oil and gas companies, saying they contributed to an extraordinarily hot day that led to her mother's fatal hyperthermia during a heat dome event that also killed more than 600 people in B.C.It's one of the first wrongful-death claims in the U.S. seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in the changing climate.The lawsuit filed in Washington state court this week says the companies knew that their products have altered the climate, including contributing to a 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest that killed 65-year-old Juliana Leon, and that they failed to warn the public of such risks.On June 28, 2021, an unusual heat wave culminated in a 42.2 C day — the hottest ever recorded in the state, according to the filing. Leon had just driv...

Diabetes Canada says it's received a surge in reports from people who've seen ads for or bought products that use the charity's logos without authorization.Since January, Diabetes Canada says it's had over 300 calls to its 1-800 line and emails from people reporting misleading advertisements for diabetes products that have the charity's logo.Diabetes Canada isn't the only organization being affected. Products ranging from purported medications and supplements to devices that claim to be blood glucose monitors are also carrying the logos of Obesity Canada and Health Canada. Some of the groups say they want the ads taken down and social media companies are doing that, but new ads keep appearing.A class of injectable medications known as GLP-1 agonists, sold in Canada under the brand name Oze...