Health

Gloria Borrelli and her mother Francesca choked back tears as they took turns hugging and kissing Mikhael Esterez on the cheek, repeating the words "thank you" over and over again outside Montreal's Sacré-Coeur hospital. After more than a week of searching for the Good Samaritans who delivered life-saving CPR to Gloria's dad, 87-year-old Sabato Borrelli, the mother and daughter finally met Esterez and another woman who played a key role that day, but who wanted to keep her identity private. Borrelli had collapsed after going into cardiac arrest while out on his daily walk on May 15 near Jarry Park."You guys are superheroes for us," Gloria told them. On Monday, the two strangers met Borrelli inside his hospital room where he continues to recover from the ordeal. He managed to wave and say t...

Dorothy Lamont, 96, lives independently in her downtown Dartmouth home, still growing her own vegetables in her backyard every summer. But her biggest worry is not having a family doctor.

High-profile officials in the U.S. federal government, along with a prominent billionaire, are now weighing in on the fate of a flock of ostriches ordered killed on a farm in a remote part of the B.C. Interior.Former TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is now the administrator for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has offered to relocate the birds to his ranch in Florida, as first reported by the New York Post.CBC News has confirmed the offer with Katie Pasitney, who is acting as a spokesperson for Universal Ostrich in Edgewood, B.C., which is co-owned by her mother. She said Oz had called the farm Monday morning to discuss the offer, and they were considering it, but in a later interview with the Canadian Press, she said they are not interested in relocating the birds.Meanwhile,...

The former owner and operator of a Saskatoon pharmacy pleaded guilty Monday to trafficking drugs, admitting she illegally sold more than 22,000 oxycodone pills.Jenna Ternan, 43, was sentenced to five years in prison for what Justice David Gerecke called an "appalling breach of trust" that "led you to harm many individuals you will never meet."He made the comments while accepting the joint sentencing proposal in Saskatoon Court of King's Bench from the Crown and defence.According to an agreed statement of facts filed in court, police started investigating Ternan after they arrested a man in January 2023 and seized drugs from him that included oxycodone pills and a box with a label for Northumberland Pharmacy, which Ternan owned and operated.The man's cellphone also contained messages betwee...

The union representing Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) workers tasked with carrying out a cull at a B.C. ostrich farm says there are fears over the workers' safety as emotions run high.Over 400 birds at Universal Ostrich farm in Edgewood, B.C., face the prospect of a cull due to an avian flu detection in December.The CFIA, which is handling Canada's response to an ongoing avian flu outbreak, won a court case earlier this month and says the cull will go ahead due to concerns over the spread and mutation of the virus.But a vocal contingent of supporters — including U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — has spoken out against the cull, arguing the flightless birds, many decades old, pose little threat of spreading avian flu and the herd should be preserved for scientific study....

The Calgary company at the centre of a daycare E. coli outbreak is set to be sentenced Tuesday morning after pleading guilty to bylaw offences last month.In April, Justice of the Peace Mathieu St-Germain accepted the company's guilty plea to operating without a food services business licence at the time of the outbreak.Lawyers for Fueling Minds Inc. — a catering company that provided food to local daycares — and the City of Calgary submitted a joint sentencing recommendation last month of a $10,000 fine.After the sentence is handed down, prosecutor Ed Ring indicated he will ask the judge to withdraw the remaining charges faced by the company's two directors. In September 2023, an E. coli outbreak was declared with at least 448 people — mostly children — falling ill. Of the most serious cas...

Ron Johnson, chief operating officer of the NLHS eastern-urban zone, says the health authority will soon be moving forward with burying unclaimed bodies. (Mark Quinn/CBC)Four months after legislation came into effect to speed up the process of burying dozens of unclaimed bodies that are being held in freezers at a hospital in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador's health authority says the plan is nearly ready.Earlier this month, CBC News reported Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services hadn't buried a single body since legislation came into effect."What's held it up is, really, us mobilizing around the new regulations, getting all the processes in place," Ron Johnson, chief operating officer of the NLHS eastern-urban zone, told reporters on Monday.Johnson said NLHS has issued a tender...

Nova Scotia's internal travel nurse program is off to a slow start, but officials say that's by design.The program, promised by the Progressive Conservatives in the last provincial election and long called for by the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union, launched earlier this spring.Although the goal is to have 30 registered nurses participate in the yearlong pilot that right now is based at the Aberdeen Hospital emergency department in New Glasgow, so far eight people have been hired and either started working or will join the team in the coming months.Jennifer MacDougall, a director with Nova Scotia Health whose responsibilities include nursing engagement strategies, said some of the people who applied did not have the necessary background to meet the hiring criteria. Other applicants were interest...

A month after the start of the high-profile sexual assault trial of five former junior hockey players in London, Ont., advocates against gender-based violence are using the proceedings to teach young men about consent and their responsibilities as role models for others. "I think for young men and for hockey players, they're watching what these five defendants have gone through and they won't want to be in that position," said Allison Preyde, the manager of prevention and education at Anova, the gender-based violence centre in London. "They don't want to be dragged through that to put their careers on the line so we're having conversations about how to make situations safer and what situations aren't worth the risk."Former hockey teammates Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillo...

When Lily MacDonald first signed in to an online workout session for women with COPD, she was sure she wasn't going to like it. She couldn't imagine doing an effective workout at her kitchen table."At first I thought, 'How can I exercise, what am I going to do?'" said MacDonald, who lives in Glace Bay, N.S. She was one of the first participants in a pilot project to offer virtual physical rehabilitation to lung patients in rural parts of the province.The project went so well it will expand across the Maritimes this fall."I felt great, I really did," MacDonald said. "As it happens, you live by yourself, you have no motivation, but I started back into exercising."Carley O'Neill says a lot of people with COPD in rural areas don't get the support they need because they are unable to attend reh...