Health

Pharmacists in Manitoba will soon be able to prescribe birth control, the province's health minister revealed this week in an announcement that came as a pleasant surprise to the industry. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the legislature Wednesday that granting pharmacists the means to assess and prescribe contraceptives is a "very reasonable expansion of scope for pharmacists in Manitoba." The minister added in an interview the government is moving "very quickly" on the changes, which will take effect "in the coming days and weeks.""We're trying to get it out the door as quickly as we can for pharmacists across the province who have been asking for this for years," they said.Pharmacists will also be able to prescribe HIV medications beginning this summer, a government official said.Man...

A Hamilton judge is expected to sentence Kaitlyn Braun today for faking pregnancies and fraudulently receiving doula care on two occasions while on house arrest for similar crimes. Braun, 26, pleaded guilty in January to two counts of obtaining by false pretence services under $5,000 and two harassment-related charges."This is a long-standing pattern for Ms. Braun," assistant Crown attorney Simon McNaughton told the court in January.  He and Braun's defence have requested Justice Joe Fiorucci sentence Braun to three years in prison. The court will also hear from victims about how Braun's crimes have impacted them. Braun previously pleaded guilty to 21 separate charges, including fraud, indecent acts, false pretences and mischief, after pretending to have experienced pregnancies and stillbi...

The jury in a British Columbia coroner's inquest into the overdose death of a University of Victoria student has recommended a raft of measures for government, schools and B.C.'s emergency dispatch system.Key among the five-person jury's recommendations released late Thursday morning were boosting education around safe drug use, making sure campus buildings were clearly addressed and stocked with emergency equipment, and updated protocols for campus security and 911 calls.Sidney McIntyre-Starko, 18, died in January 2024 after snorting fentanyl in her UVic student residence with two dorm-mates.Sidney McIntyre-Sturko suffered a fatal fentanyl overdose on the third floor of the Sir Arthur Currie student residence on the University of Victoria campus. (UVic website)The coroner's inquest into h...

A baby born with a rare and dangerous genetic disease is growing and thriving after getting an experimental gene editing treatment made just for him, according to the doctors who treated him.Researchers described the case in a new study, saying he's among the first to be successfully treated with a custom therapy that seeks to fix a tiny but critical error in his genetic code that kills half of the infants with the rare disease. Though it may be a while before similar personalized treatments are available for others, doctors hope the technology can someday help the millions left behind even as genetic medicine has advanced because their conditions are so rare."This is the first step towards the use of gene editing therapies to treat a wide variety of rare genetic disorders for which there ...

Measles has infected 182 more people in Ontario over the last week, bringing the province's case count to 1,622 since an outbreak began in October, health officials say.Public Health Ontario's measles report says there have been 119 hospitalizations, including nine intensive care cases.Of those hospitalized, 95 per cent were unvaccinated, including 89 children.This is the third consecutive week that Ontario is reporting that new cases are in the 200-range, which is on the higher end since experts started keeping track of weekly spread.Southwestern Ontario's public health unit is still where most of the new cases are concentrated.Measles cases in Alberta have reached nearly 400 since mid-March, infecting just over 120 kids under age five.The highly contagious disease continues to primarily ...

Montreal Public Health says newcomers without access to public health care are the ones being most affected by TB. Meanwhile, officials are raising concerns about the spread of syphilis among women. Source link

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says the cull of a flock of ostriches in southwest B.C. will move forward in order to fight the threat of avian flu, but it won't be providing details of the operation in advance.The notice comes as supporters of the farm are gathering in Edgewood, B.C., to try to stop it.The CFIA says it is moving ahead with the cull following a court ruling issued May 13 that found the agency had followed the proper procedures for making the decision to order the procedure, and that it has a broad mandate to make the decisions on behalf of the Canadian government.Though the judge in the case said he sympathized with the farm for the economic and emotional toll the loss of its birds would have, he also wrote in his decision that must be balanced against the great...

Shawn Richards died at the age of 37 after ingesting toxic drugs in the room of a supportive housing building where he was living in 2017. It took three days for staff to find his body.Shawn's mother, Cyndie Richards, was already haunted by the fact that her son's lifeless body lay behind a locked door for so long.But Richards says learning almost the same thing happened to Diane Chandler seven years later "chilled her to the bone."She says after Shawn's death, a manager at RainCity promised her that as a result of the mistake, wellness checks on tenants in the facility would be performed every eight to 12 hours, instead of every 24. "I just thought, 'Oh my god, you haven't done anything, and you promised me you would,'" she said.Richards and Chandler's two children say the delay in findin...

It's been 25 years since the Walkerton, Ont., tainted water tragedy nearly killed her daughter, and Trudy Fraser still does not feel comfortable drinking tap water."You lose that trust when you see people you know who got sick and passed away," she said. "That's why I still drink bottled water. It's stayed with us."Many in this town of 5,000 roughly 150 kilometres north of London, Ont., vividly recall the effects of the Victoria Day weekend in 2000, when a massive rainstorm washed water contaminated with deadly E. coli bacteria from a nearby farm field into one of the wells that fed Walkerton's water supply. Seven people died, 2,300 people got sick, and an inquiry followed, exposing how funding cuts had gutted provincial oversight of drinking water.  Seven people died and 2,300 became ill ...

The World Health Organization has reduced its management team by half and will have to scale back operations, its director-general said on Wednesday, four months after the United States announced it was leaving the agency and cutting funding."To be blunt, we cannot do everything," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a budget committee meeting ahead of the body's annual meeting next week.President Donald Trump said the U.S. was leaving the agency on the first day of his return to office in January.Under U.S. law, a one-year notice is required before the country, the biggest financial backer of the WHO, can leave, as well as the payment of all fees. That money is outstanding.Tedros said the body and its member states must make difficult choices about what to prioritize, given a proposed 21 pe...