Health

Hundreds of dead geese found this spring in fields near Lipton, Sask., 90 kilometres north east of Regina, died from avian influenza, reflecting a provincial uptick in the deadly disease, according to the Ministry of Environment.Tests completed earlier this month confirm the birds died from H5, the highly pathogenic strain of avian flu.Iga Stasiak, a wildlife health specialist with the ministry, said there have been several reports this spring of dead flocks of geese. She said that in some cases, there were hundreds of dead birds reported at sites."It is actually quite unusual to see this scale of mortality," Stasiak said."With this recent strain it seems to affect birds more seriously, so we have seen increased mortality in wild bird populations, which is concerning."The number of wild bi...

Organizations that represent Alberta's physicians and nurses say the splitting of the provincial health ministry into two, at the same time Alberta Health Services is broken into four, will create confusion for patients. On Friday, Premier Danielle Smith announced that Adriana LaGrange, formerly the health minister, is now minister of primary and preventative health services and Matt Jones is moving from Jobs, Economy and Trade to become minister of hospital and surgical services. Alberta Health will be divided to reflect the two ministers' areas of responsibility. The province says this completes the breakup of Alberta Health Services, the former province-wide health authority, into four different agencies: Acute Care Alberta, Recovery Alberta, Primary Care Alberta and Assisted Living Alb...

The first sign that something was off was the sound of truck doors being slammed outside, a puzzling break to the peace inside the yurt located down a long driveway in a wooded rural outstretch not far from the quaint town of Annapolis Royal, N.S.Within moments, a ceremonial leader named Michael Adzich had been arrested, and police were inside the tent-like structure, leaving gobsmacked six women who were in the last hours of a three-day spiritual retreat."It felt so violating to our space," Jennifer Wilson, who attended the November 2022 ceremony as a helper, told a Halifax court this week.What RCMP officers found at the site, a tar-like substance located inside a freezer, is now at the heart of an unusual case this week in Nova Scotia Supreme Court, pitting what the federal government ef...

Health P.E.I. has hired six senior managers on an interim basis through private employment agencies at costs ranging from $17,490 a month to $43,750 a month. That information is contained in a series of contracts the province provided to CBC News.These managers are filling some of the most senior roles at the health agency, including chief medical officer, chief operating officer and chief financial officer.Melanie Fraser, Health P.E.I.'s CEO, says the private employment agencies provided experienced staff on a month-to-month basis to keep the health-care system running while she worked to develop a permanent leadership team. She says it was money well spent.Health Minister Mark McLane is shown in a February 2024 speaking to a packed town hall meeting in Summerside, as then-acting Health P...

Public Health Ontario says 173 more people have been infected with measles in the province over the past week.That brings the number of measles cases to 1,795 since Ontario's outbreak began last October.The health agency's weekly measles report, released Thursday, says the virus continues to spread primarily among people who have not been immunized.The majority of people infected with measles throughout the outbreak are infants, children and adolescents.The report says a total of 129 people have required hospitalization, with 10 people admitted to the intensive care unit.The Southwestern Public Health unit, which includes Oxford County, Elgin County and St. Thomas, continues to be hardest hit, with 98 of the new cases.Measles has emerged in several parts of Canada, including Alberta, which...

As the measles outbreak grows in Alberta, some parents are feeling the strain. They're trying to keep kids safe and navigate touchy vaccine conversations with friends and family, whether they're pro-vaccines or not.Jillian Carter lives in Lethbridge, where the vaccination rate for kids who were seven last year range from 47 per cent in the surrounding county to 80 per cent within the city.Her first child is an eight-week-old infant who is too young to be vaccinated. So Carter leaves her at home when she shops for groceries, goes out less, covers her daughter's bucket seat when she enters a building, and generally avoids meeting new people socially."It does make it hard to branch out into like other communities, knowing that your child's safety is at risk when you don't know where other peo...

Cases of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses have been increasing in Quebec for more than a decade, and experts say climate change is partially to blame.With increasing temperatures, ticks are becoming more established, especially in southern Quebec, said Kirsten Crandall, a scientific adviser with the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ).And with host animals moving north, be they birds or deer, ticks are covering a broader range, she said. This is especially true for black-legged ticks which can transmit Lyme, she added."I think we will definitely be continuing on that rise in the number of different tick-borne diseases," said Crandall. "Lyme disease obviously being the one with the most case numbers."Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium transmitted by the bite ...

Parents in Manitoba are growing more concerned as measles cases rise, and for the first time, officials have called what's happening in the province an outbreak.On Wednesday, the province announced 16 new cases of the highly contagious infection since last week, bringing the total for the year to 60 confirmed cases and four probable cases. Of those, 42 cases have been confirmed in May alone, according to provincial health data up to May 17."We are experiencing an outbreak," provincial medical officer of health Dr. Santina Lee said Wednesday."We are seeing higher cases than usual, and we are seeing some ongoing community transmission," meaning cases that didn't have any known contact to a case either during travel or in Manitoba.Most cases involve children who are unvaccinated, said Lee, wh...

2 hours agoNewsDuration 5:05After a landmark ruling by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 2021, the provincial government must close large institutions that house hundreds of people with disabilities. The trouble is that for some, it's home. Portia Clark has the story. Source link

WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced​ ​​​sexual violence or know someone affected by it. When Emma Bockner was eight, she was prescribed medication for ADHD. Then as a teen, she started experiencing problematic substance use."There were a lot of things that happened in my childhood that left me with feelings of inadequacy," said Bockner, 26, who lives in Richmond Hill, Ont. She's survived emotional and sexual abuse, and struggled with an eating disorder.When Bockner graduated from high school, she saw her friends moving on with fulfilling lives, as she found herself with a part-time job, often sitting in her room alone, drinking and doing drugs."It took me about six months to get into treatment, a couple of months to get into a group home," Bockner recalled.Waitlists...