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British Columbia
VANCOUVER —
ER ratings
are in BC just
released its first major survey on emergency room care
and of the 14,767 patients who participated, 84.7% rated
the overall quality of care good to excellent. The survey
did, however, reveal a disparity in patient satisfaction.
For example, 24/7 urgent care sites with no inpatient
beds received the highest scores, while community-regional
hospitals scored lower than the BC average. BW
VANCOUVER
— A
bundle for bundles of joy The province just injected
$2 million into a new project called the Maternity Care
Network Initiative. The goal is to offer FPs incentives
to work together and to improve access to obstetrical
services. The project is a response to a trend where
doctors, particularly those in rural areas, provide
less obstetrical care, and where ever fewer women are
able to deliver in their own community. BW
Alberta
EDMONTON &
CALGARY — A
deadly debut Three Edmonton seniors were struck
down by influenza recently, and another seven are ill
at the Colonel Belcher Veteran's Care Centre in Calgary
after an early outbreak of the disease. The seniors
hadn't been vaccinated, and now health authorities in
Alberta are warning continuing care centres to fast-
track their vaccination programs. BW
EDMONTON
— Massage
school confidential Archbishop MacDonald High
School has a new, hands-on approach to promoting health
and well-being — through the holistic health practice
of massage and meditation. Julia Kopala teaches the
course and her students are giving her class rave reviews.
Ms Kopala, a veteran schoolteacher of 34 years, claims
the meditation and breathing exercises helped her recover
from thyroid cancer. BW
Saskatchewan
REGINA —
Cyber silo of surgical
data Saskatchewan has come up with a high-tech
new way to let doctors access information on 10 types
of medical procedures at seven of 13 health districts
in the province. The info is available to doctors at
the provincial Surgical Care Network website (www.sasksurgery.ca).
The website monitors how many surgeries have been performed
to date and provides key details about the operations.
Other essential data includes how many patients are
on the waiting list and how long previous patients have
waited for surgeries. BW
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Manitoba
WINNIPEG —Health
Ministry for 'sale' Premier
Gary Doer appointed Tim Sale as Manitoba's new Health
Minister in a cabinet shuffle that took place last week.
Mr Sale replaces Dave Chomiak, who held the post for
the last five years and was the longest serving of all
the provincial health ministers. The new minister is
clearly a believer in preventative medicine. He says,
"We know from Nobel Prize-winning economists, [early
childhood development] is the best investment that any
nation can make." BW
Ontario
LONDON —
A real Canadian
idol Canadians voted in a CBC poll for the 50
greatest Canadians of all time, and a doc made the top
10. In the early 1920s, the brilliant and assiduous
young Sir Frederick Banting scored major breakthroughs
in fighting diabetes, culminating with the discovery
of insulin. Before accepting the 1923 Nobel Prize for
Physiology or Medicine, the selfless Sir Frederick insisted
his unsung lab partner, Charles Best, share the prize.
BW
TORONTO
— The
space age of Aquarius Space, the final medical
frontier? Canadian astronaut and MD, Dr David Williams,
claims that experiments and discoveries learned from
the Aquarius underwater space simulation lab will help
doctors perform long-distance medical consultations
from city hospitals to rural areas. Last week a NEEMO
7 (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) crewmember,
with no medical training, successfully performed a gall
bladder ultrasound operation on a fellow crewmember.
She performed the surgery in the underwater lab off
the coast of Florida, while being directed by a medical
team at Hamilton's St Joseph's Hospital, over 2,400
kilometres away. BW
TORONTO
— Doctors
in the house divided The Coalition of Family
Physicians (COFP) of Ontario has recently spoken out
against the McGuinty government's health deal, which
was negotiated by the Ontario Medical Association. The
COFP took umbrage with the provision in the deal that
"only rewards family doctors who agree to undertake
significant legal risks and administrative burdens by
joining or forming healthcare collectives." The board,
which claims to represent one third of family physicians
in the province, encourages fellow doctors "to get the
facts before casting their votes." BW
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