First Indigenous president of the Canadian Medical Association speaks about what it will take to overcome inequities
On Canada’s newly-declared National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we asked Dr. Alika Lafontaine to take stock of the state of reconciliation in health care. Lafontaine, an anesthesiologist at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie and associate clinical professor in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, was recently chosen as the…
On average, drug approvals take three months longer in Canada than in the U.S. and one month longer than in Europe
By Maria Lily Shaw and Krystle Wittevrongel Montreal Economic Institute The past year has shown us beyond the shadow of a doubt that human ingenuity is a match for the greatest of challenges. The rapid development and mass production of several COVID-19 vaccines are proof of our remarkable capacity for innovation. Pharmaceutical innovation, one of…
How long will Canadian patients put up with substandard treatment?
As the third wave of the COVID recedes in Canada, watch for the resumption of an old debate about the impact on patients of delayed procedures and treatments. On one side, hospitals, medical associations, and labour unions will point to the many patients who endured cancelled care. On the other, with apologies to Burke, economists…
Kimberly Fairman is helping to revolutionize the way public health policy is developed in Northern Canada. Fairman is executive director of the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, an organization focused on improving the health of northerners through community-based research. “This is the most meaningful work of my career,” Fairman said. “It gives me the freedom to…
COVID-19 has been part of our lives for what feels like an eternity – and then some. The starting point remains a bit sketchy, truth be told. It officially began when China first reported people exhibiting pneumonia-like symptoms at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan City on Dec. 31, 2019. A World Health Organization…
A cure should never be worse than the disease and when regulators don’t do due diligence, that’s the very thing that can happen
Can we trust our government and medical establishment? Not entirely. Some glimpses of Health Canada’s approach to prescription drug safety are less than assuring. Public policy should be guided towards more drug safety, not less. Health Canada was solely funded by taxpayers until 1994 when it began to issue user fees to companies that wanted…
COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem but it’s not the primary cause of our wait-time crisis
By Mackenzie Moir and Bacchus Barua The Fraser Institute With a full year of life with COVID-19 behind us, and the hope of mass vaccination on the horizon, it’s time for policy-makers to refocus some of their attention on our other health-care crisis – long wait times for medical care. Although the number of patients…
A serious blow to our delusion we are better than Americans
When it comes to health care, Canadians only seem to care about one thing: Are we better than the United States? As long as we “beat” the U.S., we remain smug about our performance, although this attitude can be hard to square with the tens of thousands of Canadians who get quick access to top-level…
12 months in, health-care system still can't provide Canadians with timely care while dealing with COVID-19
It has been a year since the world was brought to its knees by a microscopic particle known as COVID-19. Since then, the virus has taken the lives of more than 22,000 Canadians and infected another 940,000. But those are just the numbers that show up on media screens and government paperwork. The real human…
National survey identifies potential issues and areas for improvement among radiation therapy professionals
A new study led by a group of recently graduated radiation therapy students at the University of Alberta shows that many in the profession feel more training is needed to properly care for cancer patients in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, two-spirit, pansexual, intersex, asexual, plus (LGBTQ2SPIA+) community. The team – Samantha Chan, Samie…
On Canada’s newly-declared National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we asked Dr. Alika Lafontaine to take stock of the state of reconciliation in health care. Lafontaine, an anesthesiologist at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie and associate clinical professor in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, was recently chosen as the…
