A round-up of Canadian health news, from coast to coast to coast and beyond, for Wednesday, December 17.
Dr David Swann has been elected leader of the Alberta Liberals by a wide margin. Dr Swann is best known for being fired from his pre-politics job as a public health official by the Progressive Conservative government for his vocal support of the Kyoto Protocol, and for staging a hunger strike in Ottawa last year to protest the Canadian government's failure to act to protect the people of Darfur. Of particular importance to note is Dr Swann's flirtation with the idea of abandoning the party's name, presumably to jettison any association with the unpopular-in-Alberta federal Liberals. Before announcing his candidacy for the party leadership, he appeared to toy with the idea of creating an opposition coalition party before giving up on the idea. But Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh said yesterday that Dr Swann's "odd coalition" has nevertheless come to pass. "[W]hat the Liberals got, after their party apparently got hijacked by a dodgy coalition of non-governmental organizations and radical environmentalists who backed Swann, may bear little resemblance to what they once had," wrote a very cynical Mr Waugh, who also advanced the theory that a party name change could still be in the offing. In today's Calgary Herald, Naomi Lakritz offered a rather odd endorsement of Dr Swann and the Liberals and wondered why he is so often referred to as "eccentric." The Herald's Jason Fekete gave Dr Swann a rather rough welcome to the leader's seat, citing his "steep learning curve" after witnessing an awkward series of PR goofs.
Newfoundland and Labrador's sole HIV/AIDS clinic is in danger of being shut down in a matter of months after the province's only infectious-disease specialist, Dr Mazen Bader, who runs the clinic, announced he is leaving in March. His departure follows that of the province's other ID physician, whose position, vacated last year, still hasn't been filled. "The earlier resignation of the other specialist likely played a role in Bader's decision to quit because his workload had doubled," guessed The Telegram. If a replacement can't be found before Dr Bader leaves, HIV/AIDS patients may be seen by internists and family physicians, a local health official said. "They will not be thrown to the wind."
Canadian police are beginning to put away their Tasers as safety concerns -- and accidental deaths -- mount. "There have been officers who don't want to carry a Taser because they don't want to be placed in a controversial situation," one Edmonton detective testified at a recent disciplinary hearing about misuse of the weapons. In Ottawa, the Liberals and the NDP called for a temporary suspension of the use of Tasers by police officers across the country until the government acts on recommendations made in a review by the House of Commons Committee on Public Safety. "Unfortunately now, with over 20 deaths, it's incredibly obvious to anyone who looks at the situation, that we've got to mark a pause for the use of the taser right now, simply because it's been proven abundantly clear that they're too dangerous to be used without proper rules. And we don't have proper rules," NDP deputy leader Thomas Mulcair told the Times & Transcript.
A huge international study investigating the potential connection between cell phone use and cancer is now two years late, and the Canadian contingent has declined to release its results as eight of the twelve other countries have already done. "There is a lot of data that's been obtained, but not all of it, and the people sitting on it are being obstructionists for a particular reason," said Columbia University professor Martin Blank, whose request that all the results to be released as soon as possible has been met with silence. "They don't want the results to come out. It's as simple as that." []
New Brunswick Health Minister Mike Murphy is endangering patients by continuing to delay a decision on filling the director's position of the provincial trauma program. Only one application has been received in 10 months -- that of Dr Andrew Trenholm -- yet the deadline has been extended another year. "To me, he is the obvious choice and also the most qualified," said Conservative health critic Margaret-Ann Blaney. "I'm amazed he's even still here." An open letter to the minister, by Dr Donald E Craig, the president of one of New Brunswick's medical staff organizations, yesterday asked for the government to take action soon. And one of Dr Trenholm's former patients, Donald Thomas, the mismanagement of whose case inspired the creation of a centralized provincial trauma unit, asked in an opinion article, "Mr. Murphy, do you realize that your silence vis a vis his application as chair of the trauma system is a slap across the face of a man of the highest calibre in health care?"
After yet another temporary shutdown of Ontario's Chalk River nuclear plant last week forced doctors to move up tests last weekend to ensure radioactive contrast materials were available, the facility has reopened and resumed producing the necessary radioisotopes used in medical diagnostic imaging. The doctors' concerns were prompted by the extension of a planned five-day shutdown by just a day and a half. The shutdown and subsequent panic have restarted debate about the absence of contingency planning for the Chalk River plant, which is crucial to the entire world's supply of medical radioisotopes.
A report released today by the Canadian Forces ombudsman's office finds fault with the military's handling of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers and veterans. The report, entitled A Long Road to Recovery: Battling Operational Stress Injuries, found that only 13 of the 31 recommendations made in a 2002 report on improving the Canadian Forces' treatment of PTSD have been implemented, including the very first one, which recommends "The Canadian Forces develop a database that accurately reflects the number of Canadian Forces personnel, including members of both the Regular and Reserve Forces, who are affected by stress-related injuries." At the Canadian Medical Association's annual meeting, in August, there was a somewhat divisive resolution passed about the effectiveness of the military's PTSD screening program. As I reported then, "There was a fair amount of debate on this motion at the meeting. A physician with the Canadian Forces stood up to defend the military’s PTSD screening and treatment program, and there was some disagreement back and forth about how the screening program worked and whether it conformed to evidence-based research." [Canadian Medicine]
Lesbian teenagers are more likely to become pregnant than heterosexual teenagers, found a University of British Columbia study published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. "These results are linked to higher rates of discrimination and harassment among LGB teens at school," said lead author Elizabeth Saewyc, a UBC nursing professor, in a release. []
After a consulting firm's review of Alberta's healthcare system recommended consolidating hospital services and converting some rural hospitals into clinics, many Albertans are worried the availability of services may become more limited. "We make no apologies that we have to look at the delivery of health care across the province and do what makes sense for the patient," Health Minister Ron Liepert told the Calgary Herald. "The media is totally focused on how much money will this save. We are doing this for the right reasons, not necessarily to save money." Though small towns are "worried sick" about the potential scope of the closures, which reportedly threaten to start an intra-party battle between urban and rural Tory legislators , the Herald's editorial board endorsed the idea. "Albertans will hate it, and it will be a tough sell for Premier Ed Stelmach and his rural caucus," said the editorial. "But the fact remains, many medical experts, including the new Liberal Leader Dr. David Swann, believe there are too many rural hospitals... After all, how many half-empty hospitals does one province need?"
Montreal's teaching hospitals purchased specialized software to help reduce prescription drug interactions and keep track of contraindications.
Digitizing radiological images could save the country's healthcare system up to $1.5 billion per year, a new report from Canada Health Infoway said. [ (PDF)] []
Now we know the cause of the 2004-2006 Toronto General Hospital outbreak of multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa that killed 12 patients: the design of the hospital's sinks. "The big design flaw with the sink was that the gooseneck where the water is coming out was positioned directly over the drain itself," said lead author Dr Michael Gardam, the University Health Network's director of infection prevention, told CBC News. "So when you washed your hands, that water wasn't hitting the side of the bowl first, it was hitting the drain directly, splashing inside the drain, and then causing those drain contents to splash out." "It's a cruel irony that in a setting where clean hands are critical, the sinks turned out to be the problem," commented the Canadian Press.
New Brunswick nurses will not go on strike over the holidays, after all. A mediator will now attempt to help the nurses' union and the government come to an agreement.
Prince Edward Island is well on its way to its own family medicine residency program, starting next year. []
An Iraqi-born British doctor was sentenced to a minimum of 32 years in prison for his role in a car-bombing at the Glasgow airport and two attempted car-bombings in London last year. One accomplice, an engineering student, died of injuries he sustained in Glasgow. A Jordanian-born neurologist was acquitted of any crimes and is now fighting a deportation order, and another doctor was deported to India after refusing to cooperate with police. After the Glasgow attack last year, we wrote about some people who insisted it should come as no surprise that doctors could be terrorists. [Canadian Medicine]
McGill psychology professor Daniel Levitin on why Christmas carols are so catchy... and why they're so damn annoying.
Dr Anne Berndl, an ob/gyn resident at Dalhousie and creator of the web resource , has published a book on Canadian med school, So, You Want to be a Doctor, Eh? []
A special edition of Grand Rounds -- the best medical blog posts of 2008 -- is online.