Category Archives: Health

Health

A Promising New Way to Prevent HIV Infections

By Moira Wyton, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A British Columbia-led research group is paving the way for a landmark preventative HIV medication it hopes can reduce Canada’s stagnant rates of new HIV infections. 

Long-acting pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is more than 99 per cent effective  at preventing the development of HIV when it is injected every two  months, according to clinical trial data reported by manufacturer ViiV  Healthcare. 

The injectable drug, cabotegravir, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last December but has not yet been submitted to Health Canada for approval. 

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Health

Beating the winter blues: a local therapist’s perspective

CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

With fewer daylight hours and, typically, less social interaction, winter can be challenging on mental health — but we don’t have to suffer through it, a Cortes Island therapist says.

Registered clinical counsellor Kira MacDuffee has a practice, Opening Works, in Mansons Landing. MacDuffee said that the long winter months are comparable to COVID-19 lockdown periods: all that alone time can be confronting but is, simultaneously, a huge opportunity for healing and transformation, she said.

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Health

Vancouver’s Recovery Café Is an ‘Oasis in the Desert’

By Moira Wyton, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Calen Carswel has been in recovery nearly as long as he’s been alive.

The 61-year-old lost his  older sister, Eleanor, in a car accident when he was just four. The  absence of her love and emotional support, Carswel said, sent him  seeking comfort almost everywhere he could find.

Carswel says he turned to sugar and  television as a child, and then to alcohol, pornography and cocaine as a  young man living in Lillooet, Newfoundland and Vancouver. 

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Arts, Food, Health, Indigenous Nations

Documentary series explores couple’s journey to decolonize wellness

By Aaron Hemens, The Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

An Indigenous couple on syilx homelands has completed a documentary series that details their wellness journey of decolonizing their lifestyles and embracing cultural ways of being.

Decolonizing Wellness is a six-part video production created by cə̓q̓cq̓am (Thunder) Ryan Oliverius of Okanagan Indian Band (OKIB) and Shayla Raine, a nehiyaw iskwew from Louis Bull Tribe.

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Health

B.C. moves to bring more foreign-trained doctors

By Fabian Dawson, New Canadian Media, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Facing a critical shortage of doctors, British Columbia has announced a series of initiatives to get more internationally educated physicians to practise in the province.

Key among the plans include the creation of a new class of ‘associate physicians’ which will allow for international medical graduates (IMGs) to care for patients under the supervision of an attending physician within a health authority acute-care setting.

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