Medicine Canada

Manitoba’s nursing regulator is raising the alarm over the “nursing incompetence” of some internationally educated nurses first licensed in other provinces, including highlighting two cases in which RNs trained abroad are alleged to have contributed to preventable deaths.

The College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba (CRNM) is going public with its concerns in hopes of convincing the provincial government to rescind a directive ordering it to abide by the Canadian Free Trade Agreement and other laws that are supposed to make it easy for nurses licensed in one province to get licensed in another.

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After menopause, urinary tract infections (UTIs) can be more frequent, yet most Canadian women (82 per cent in a recent survey) don’t realize the two are associated.

Authors

• Erin A. Brennand - Gynecologist & Associate Professor, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
• Jayna Holroyd-Leduc - Professor and Head, Department of Medicine, University of Calgary, University of Calgary
• Pauline McDonagh Hull - PhD Candidate, Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary

Doctors at a medical clinic in Kingsey Falls, a town in central Quebec, say they are contemplating closing their clinic and pivoting out of family practice — or Quebec altogether — if a bill allowing the province to regulate how physicians are paid is adopted as it is written.

Bill 106, tabled earlier this month, would link up to 25 per cent of physicians' pay to their performance in an effort to get them to take on more patients.

But in a statement posted to their social media, doctors at the Kingsey Falls medical clinic said the new rules would impose unattainable performance targets on them and reduce their ability to deliver quality care to patients.

"We can't take on more patients if we don't have more resources or a system that's more efficient and productive to be able to take good care of them," said Dr. Isabelle Lemieux, who works at the clinic.

Diabetes Canada says it's received a surge in reports from people who've seen ads for or bought products that use the charity's logos without authorization.

Since January, Diabetes Canada says it's had over 300 calls to its 1-800 line and emails from people reporting misleading advertisements for diabetes products that have the charity's logo.

Diabetes Canada isn't the only organization being affected. Products ranging from purported medications and supplements to devices that claim to be blood glucose monitors are also carrying the logos of Obesity Canada and Health Canada. Some of the groups say they want the ads taken down and social media companies are doing that, but new ads keep appearing.

Doctors at a medical clinic in Kingsey Falls, a town in central Quebec, say they are contemplating closing their clinic and pivoting out of family practice — or Quebec altogether — if a bill allowing the province to regulate how physicians are paid is adopted as it is written.

Bill 106, tabled earlier this month, would link up to 25 per cent of physicians' pay to their performance in an effort to get them to take on more patients.

But in a statement posted to their social media, doctors at the Kingsey Falls medical clinic said the new rules would impose unattainable performance targets on them and reduce their ability to deliver quality care to patients.

"We can't take on more patients if we don't have more resources or a system that's more efficient and productive to be able to take good care of them," said Dr. Isabelle Lemieux, who works at the clinic.

"I remember just standing there in disbelief … and the initial confusion very quickly turned to rage," said Bordignon, who works as a police officer.

"I'm no fool, I've seen autopsies performed, they are not pretty … it was soul-crushing and just wrong.... It's just like, okay, so if this is an itemized list, this means the autopsy has been done. Where is she?"

CBC News has learned that the Bordignons' concerns about both the invoice and the delay in releasing Makayla's body are now under investigation by B.C.'s Patient Care Quality Review Board — the body tasked with reviewing complaints about health authority policies and procedure.

The story highlights what experts say is a lack of standardized care when it comes to stillbirths, which can result in errors that traumatize already grieving families.

For context:

Canada Health Infoway is an independent, federally funded, not-for-profit organization tasked with accelerating the adoption of digital health solutions, such as electronic health records, across Canada

These are the vendors that they have chosen for an AI scribe program, which "provides up to 10,000 fully funded, one-year licenses for AI-powered documentation tools to eligible primary care clinicians across Canada" and notes that "rigorous evaluation criteria included vendor capabilities, privacy, cybersecurity, EMR integration, and clinical usability".

There is more information on the website

It’s a paradox that has bedevilled health-system planners in Canada for years: Why, as the number of family doctors per capita grew, did it become more difficult to find one?

The answer lies in how physicians trained in family medicine practise today, according to a new study based on 30 years of Ontario Health Insurance Plan billing data.

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Provincial governments should pay for the weight-loss drug Wegovy for people who are overweight and have survived a heart attack or stroke, according to a new report from the organization that advises Canadian public drug plans on which new medications to cover.

Canada’s Drug Agency, which released the draft recommendation on Thursday, said taxpayer-funded drug plans should reimburse Wegovy for people with a body mass index of 27 or higher and pre-existing cardiovascular disease because a clinical trial found the once-weekly injection cut their risk of another heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death by 20 per cent.

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Canada has seen more cases of the measles this year than at any time since the wildly contagious disease was eliminated here in 1998, a resurgence experts chalk up to falling vaccination rates.

Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, has for years warned of the dangers of the anti-vaccine movement. Dr. Hotez, whose latest book is The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, is in Winnipeg this week. He spoke with health reporter Kelly Grant about measles, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and whether he would ever consider leaving the United States.

Ontario reports 200 new measles cases as province struggles to contain outbreak

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The federal election campaign has so far focused on cost of living and the trade war. Health care – an issue that touches the lives of every Canadian – was notably absent from the leaders’ debates, although the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP have made a number of promises on that front in recent days, including to add more family doctors.

Last week, The Globe and Mail hosted a webcast panel – Election 2025: Steps to heal Canada’s health care system –to discuss the current landscape, possible solutions and what to look for when casting your vote on April 28.

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The last type of chemotherapy that David Easton tried in his five-year fight against prostate cancer left him living a life that was really no life at all.

The retired Ontario autoworker slept 20 hours a day. His little time awake was spent hunched on or over the toilet at his home in Ayton, a small community about two hoursnorthwest of Toronto.

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The last type of chemotherapy that David Easton tried in his five-year fight against prostate cancer left him living a life that was really no life at all.

The retired Ontario autoworker slept 20 hours a day. His little time awake was spent hunched on or over the toilet at his home in Ayton, a small community about two hours northwest of Toronto.

He and his wife, Ann Easton, decided in February of 2024 that he would stop chemotherapy, even though he had exhausted all other treatments and very much wanted to live.

Then, about a year later, Mr. Easton was presented with a new option: a radioactive drug delivered by IV that would target his cancer and spare his healthy cells, unlike chemotherapy. “The nurse said that chemo was like being hit with a sledgehammer,” Ms. Easton said, “and this stuff is like being tickled with a feather.”

The only catch was that the 73-year-old would have to limit time with his wife and grandchildren for a few days after the drug was injected into his bloodstream because he would be radioactive.

The radiopharmaceutical that Mr. Easton received at London Health Sciences Centre on March 20 is called Pluvicto, and it is part of a new class of treatments that proponents predict will soon be a fourth pillar of cancer care, alongside surgery, chemotherapy and traditional radiation.

Good morning. Plenty has changed in the treatment of obesity since experts last published advice on caring for young people with the chronic disease in 2007. More on that below, along with election campaign updates and Katy Perry in outer space.

Today’s headlines

U.S. President Donald Trump muses about tariff relief for automakers and begins the process for semiconductor and pharmaceutical leviesFormer hockey player Chris Simon has been posthumously diagnosed with CTE, and the NHL says there’s no proven link between the twoConservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pledges to use the notwithstanding clause to allow longer sentences for multiple murderers

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Doctors caring for young people with obesity should provide nutritionaland exercise advice, but should also consider offering weight-loss drugs and bariatric surgery to teenagers, according to the first new Canadian guideline on the treatment of pediatric obesity in nearly 20 years.

The clinical practice guideline, which provides advice to doctors on how to treat children with obesity, was published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. It features 10 recommendations, including one in favour of GLP-1 receptor agonists, the class of drugs that contains semaglutide, better known as the Type 2 diabetes medication Ozempic.

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cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/147336