Category Archives: Health

Health

Curing the Most Deadly Communicable Disease on the Planet

Editor’s note: A health warning for our area as well the urban centres mentioned.

By Michelle Gamage, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The hepatitis C Virus kills more people than most other communicable diseases, including AIDS and tuberculosis, says Dr.  Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases  Centre. Conway was recently named an Elimination Champion for his work fighting the disease.

This excludes COVID-19 which, as a generational pandemic gets measured differently by infectious disease experts, Conway adds. 

HCV killed 290,000 people globally in 2019 according to the World Health Organization, including 1,162 Canadians. 

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Health

BC’s Rural Emergency Room Crisis

An alarming trend to watch.

Editor’s note: During a protest over closures at North Island ERs, Adriane Gear VP of the BC Nurses Union told CHEK NEWS, “Our nurses are very worried. The Campbell River Hospital, I understand at any given time could be at 140%, 145% capacity, and at the same time there’s maybe only 60% to 70% of the nurses that would be normally scheduled to work.”  

By Michelle Gamage, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The province’s emergency rooms are in crisis.

ERs across the Lower Mainland have made the news for being at capacity and past their breaking points. This overcrowding led to the death of an infant in 2020 and a senior in 2022.

Doctors have even been urging people to stay away and seek help elsewhere. In the Lower Mainland one in 10 patients are leaving ERs without seeing a doctor, according to reporting by CTV. 

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Health

Transparency, accountability at B.C.’s ambulance service has flatlined, audit review shows

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Vital signs on the performance and state of B.C.’s ambulance service remain an outstanding mystery, an update from the B.C. auditor general on Tuesday shows. 

BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) and the Ministry of Health have failed to improve public transparency and accountability for ambulance services, or establish a co-ordinated approach so that patient care meets acceptable medical standards, indicates an extensive review of the province’s track record in response to 18 individual audits involving a wide range of agencies since 2019. 

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Health, Indigenous Nations

Acclaimed First Nations healer and therapist wins Reconciliation Award

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After leaving residential school in the late 1950s, Klith-waa-taa would wade into a frigid river to brush himself with sacred cedar branches, cleansing away the trauma and negativity imposed upon him as a child. 

The traditional practice he learned as a boy at his grandfather’s side became vital to Klith-waa-taa, or Dr. Barney Williams, during his healing and path to sobriety at age 26 in 1965. 

“We would go into a river to bathe and ask for strength, but also to ask the Creator to look out for other people that needed help,” said Williams. 

“We usually go for four rounds in the water. The last round is for yourself — the first three are for other people.” 

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Health

Does Cancer Care in Washington Work for BC Residents?

By Brishti Basu, The Tyee,  Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The first few breast cancer and prostate cancer patients started travelling from their homes in British Columbia to  receive radiation therapy at two clinics in Bellingham, Washinton, this  spring. They are part of a provincial government response to a growing  backlog of cancer treatment. The province announced its plan to send  patients to Washington state for cancer care last month.

Continue reading Does Cancer Care in Washington Work for BC Residents? →