I'm actually on vacation this week, and am about to go sit by the pool, read a magazine, and work on adding some lifelike color to my pasty white skin. So here's a roundup:

Why don't they just call it cotton candy? Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims

There is no compulsion in religion? British street gang forcing conversions to Islam, dealing drugs.

Cold Terror: Mohammed Mansour Jabarah conspired to blow up U.S. embassies in Singapore and Philippines, gets life term in prison

Bad time to be born in Montreal hospital: Doctors at a Montreal hospital are threatening to stop delivering babies this spring, saying the aging maternity ward is in a decrepit state of repair.

I don't agree with this ruling, especially when young girls are being coerced into getting the HPV vaccine (which has not had enough time to be adequately tested) that you and I are funding: Men who pay for prostrate screening tests are not being discriminated against even though women get free breast cancer screening, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal said Thursday in a ruling it conceded would not end the public health controversy.

And for a great laugh: The Top 25 Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

Labels: Canadiana, Health, Islamic Terror, Travel, United Kingdom

You know: Go the extra mile, work the extra hours, finish that impossible project, and reap the rewards.

But you shouldn't be given incentives to do the most basic functions of your job. For that, you already get a paycheck. And if you perform those functions day after day, week after week, year after year, you get to keep your paycheck and not get fired. Not getting fired is a great incentive.

Doctors, nurses and other health-care workers at Canada's largest research hospital will soon learn that cleanliness is not only next to godliness - it also brings them that much closer to a Timbit.

In an effort to persuade hospital workers to properly clean their hands, a roaming posse of infection control staff at University Health Network will give a $2 Tim Hortons gift certificate to some of those caught cleaning their hands at its Princess Margaret, Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals.

In the real world, if you do not perform the basic functions of your job, you lose it. A "disincentive", I believe it's called. Maybe that's what we need, instead.

Labels: Apocalypso, Health, Oddities

"I mean, if we do Hillary-care and socialized medicine in this country, where are the Canadians going to go for health care?" he [Rudy Giuliani] asked.

On the right side of the page (natch) is a Slatecard widget. Show your support for Rudy!

Labels: Giuliani, Health, Hillary Clinton, Slatecard

Today the word came out that Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary, has cancer of the liver. My father died from the very same thing - colon, spread to liver.

My mother, on the other hand, died when her cancer spread to her bones, much the way Elizabeth Edwards' has.

No matter your political stripe, please join me in praying for the comfort of, if not the lives of, these two people. They have a hard road ahead of them, and they shouldn't have the potholes and sharp stones of partisan politics in their paths to make the journey worse.

Labels: Cancer, Health, Politics

Oh, the dramas that unfold in a public healthcare provider's office - the frustrations, the anger bubbling to the surface - like some great sociology project. Waiting, endless waiting. Our time here has no value. We may be the patients, but the doctor answers only to the government. Ironically, I discovered on Tuesday that the doctors have since taken to referring to us as "customers" - a label that denotes a relationship based on commerce and trade - yet the principles of customer service do not apply here, for we are not the ones paying the bill.

Everyone's time is precious and should be respected, whether you are retired, or a lawyer billing $500 an hour who must turn down an client, or a caregiver who must arrange for someone to look after your elderly parent. Double-bookings, triple-bookings – it doesn't matter if the "customer" is unhappy - the bill will still be paid. The wait is long, and we are all equal in the neglect and abuse we endure. The physicians are free to treat us with indifference, and we must meekly accept. You see, we have no choice.

In our country, a pregnant woman may choose, almost up to the moment of birth, to end the life of her baby. After all, it's her body, right? But what about my body, and my choice? Why can't I choose to see a doctor who will respect my needs and my time?

After a three hour wait for my 3:30 appointment, which of course I left the office early for, I was presented with a $49 bill for the sick-leave note I required for my absence last week. It was a fee I didn't mind paying, but the doctor's office - though happy to charge for such "luxury" services - does not accept credit cards or even have a debit machine. Like a bookie or the dealer at the corner of Dundas and Yonge, this was a strictly cash business. I was asked - politely - by the (harried) receptionist to go downstairs, cross the street and walk half a block to the nearest bank machine, the final insult being that the receptionist did not have the $11 change for the three twenties I handed her. The doctor herself actually had the nerve to ask - after my three hour wait - if I could go down to the shop in the lobby for change. As a testament to her obviously effective treatment of me for anxiety, I neither burst into frustrated tears nor strangled her. Instead I gave her a firm "no", that after such a long wait I would most certainly not be willing to run and fetch my own change.

How did we come to this point? Surely Tommy Douglas did not have that disrespectful scenario in mind when he introduced us to the so-called wonders of socialized medicine. Surely he didn't see Canada in the same category as Cuba, where the public service is mandatory and private competition is not only discouraged but illegal. Our system is broken. The sacred cow at the heart of "Canadian-ness" has become a monster - a mad cow. It's time to slaughter the beast and start fresh. There is nothing Canadian about this kind of treatment.

Labels: Canadiana, Health

Feeling a little fragile tonight. Had a storm hit last night that I wasn't expecting. Seems all this sleeping was leading to a major anxiety attack that totally broadsided us. It was only a year ago that I began taking my anxiety medication. It appears to have stopped working. And now, for the first time in over a year, this terrible feeling is back. I'm just trying to ride it out, and remind myself that it will pass. It always does.

Now if only my goddam doctor weren't on Spring Break......

Labels: Health, Personal

In the past 3 days, I don't think I've slept much less than 50 hours. In the past month, I have slept through my alarm no less than 4 times. I'm either becoming a housecat, practicing for death, or maybe there's a scientific explanation.

Anyone? WTF? Is it barometric pressure? Am I not getting enough red meat (I eat it at least once a week)? I'm not depressed (for once). I'm to frickin' old and married for mono!!

Oh well. That post just sucked all the energy out of me. Time for a nap.

Labels: Health, Personal

The perils of Canada's "free" "health" "care".

Most former patients experienced a "difficult path" through [cancer] treatment, from experiencing booking errors to finding themselves a "go-between" among professionals, the report found. Only a small minority reported that their care had lived up to expectations.

"Currently, there is no co-ordinated system of care," said Sharon Wood, executive director of the foundation's Ontario chapter.

"Women were surprised, because they expected a co-ordinated system of care and didn't find it."

Ms. Noble said she found it difficult to navigate her way through the health-care system when she was first diagnosed with the disease in 2004.

She underwent chemotherapy treatments on Friday afternoons, only to find that when the extreme side-effects of the treatment kicked in, the cancer centre she relied on for her care was closed for the weekend.

When things didn't work, like pain medication, it could take days before the problem could be rectified, she added. She once had to wait two days to obtain a much-needed drug, because it wasn't available in her city.

I buried two parents because of cancer. It is one of the ugliest ways to die, and I wouldn't wish is on anyone. By the time they were diagnosed (in the case of my father it was his fault for waiting, in the case of my mother the doctors didn't detect it when there was still time to do something about it) it was already terminal for them. Any treatments they endured were mostly of a palliative nature. Very little effort was put into saving them. In my father's case, that was his choice. He wanted to die. In my mother's, nothing we could have done would have saved her - even a miracle would have been hard pressed to make a dent in her illness. But if we'd been in a situation where recovery was our goal, I cannot imagine how frustrating it would be to have to go through all be bureaucratic to-and-fro that this report describes.

Even the diagnosis step is falling short:

It also suggests that women 40 to 49 be included in the province's breast screening program, which currently targets women 50 to 79.

That recommendation is key, said Nancy Noble, a 47-year-old cancer survivor from London, Ont.

"Women under 50 are really comfortable with technological change and would line up," the mother of two said. "I mean, I have friends I know who would pay to have one done if it was accessible to them."

However, earlier scientific studies have questioned the merits of introducing breast screening programs for all women 40 to 49. In particular, there is less evidence that screening mammography significantly reduces mortality in those under 50, compared with screening in older age groups. [emphasis mine]

I went to the doctor this afternoon - routine stuff, yet she still had me waiting for an hour past my appointment time - and on my way out, waiting for the elevator, I overheard two old men talking on a bench in the hall. I don't know which doctor on the floor they were waiting for, but one was saying to the other that even with an appointment, he always factors three hours before being seen. I couldn't believe it. I turned to him and said "Yet there are some in the US who think we have it great here!"

He answered, "Well, we do, considering we don't pay for it."

As the elevator doors opened for me, I said "Sir, we're getting what we're paying for."

Labels: Canadiana, Health

No, really.

A MUSLIM doctors' leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is "un-Islamic".

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them "haram", or unlawful for Muslims to take.
Islam permits only the consumption of halal products, where the animal has had its throat cut and bled to death while God's name is invoked.

Islam also forbids the eating of any pig meat, which Katme says is another reason why vaccines should be avoided, as some contain or have been made using pork-based gelatine.

I was sitting in my doctor's office a couple of months back, and I noticed a poster on her wall about child vaccinations. It said that by law, all kids had to be vaccinted before they would be allowed in Ontario public schools. Makes sense to me. What's the point in having my kid vaccinated if the kid he or she sits next to is carrying polio or mumps? My kid is still going to end up getting sick. Anyhow, at the bottom of this poster was a note saying that if you did not wish to have your child vaccinated for personal or religious reasons (which pretty much covers laziness, which would be a personal reason), then you had to call the Ministry of Health for an exception. What good does that do? My little Bobby has to sit next to a filthy and diseased Mohammed or Fatima, just because their parents don't believe in preventing polio??

There is already evidence of lower than average vaccination rates in Muslim areas, reducing the prospect of the "herd immunity" needed to curb infectious diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella.
Katme's appeal reflects a global movement by some hardline Islamic leaders who are telling followers to refuse vaccines from the West.

In Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India, Muslims have refused to be immunised against polio after being told that the vaccines contain products that the West has deliberately added to make the recipients infertile.

Katme said he was bringing the message to Britain after analysing the products used for the manufacture of the vaccines.

Right. Health and science is haram to people living in the seventh century. Whatever. Islam is a cult that embraces death, so if they don't want to protect their kids from possible fatal diseases, that's their choice. But that means I have to be doubly cautious where my own (hypothetical) children are concerned. I guess I can't let them go to public school with these little disease-bags, right? And what about just going to a movie, or riding a crowded subway? I'm not going to keep my (hypothetical) Mary or Scotty locked up because Ahmed has TB. I say, lock up Ahmed!

The Muslims have found one more way to put our lives at risk. And this time they're going after our kids. Quarantine 'em. Don't let them out in society until they're clean enough not to pose a biological risk to our children. And if they want to emigrate here, instate an Ellis Island-style vaccination and quarantine system, or just don't let them in.

You are perfectly welcome to your religious views, but not at the sake of the health of others.

(as an aside, if while they are all in quarantine, the incidences of terror-related acts happen to decline markedly, remember that it's probably just a coincidence....)

Labels: Health, Islam, Religion, Science

Dr. Mary Fernando has an excellent article in yesterday's Toronto Star about the sickly state of our top-heavy healthcare system.

In Canada, we are not spending our health-care dollars on hospitals, better front-line services, doctors and equipment. Instead, we spend too much money on bureaucracy and the flavour-of-the-moment programs with catchy names, all of which are burgeoning at a scandalous rate.

Indeed. In Ontario alone, we are spending millions tracking wait times for things like cancer and cataract surgeries, instead of actually performing the surgeries. How many various stop-smoking hotlines does this country have right now? There's a federal one, and I know Ontario has one. Does every province have a telephone number you can dial that tells you to make an appointment with your doctor to discuss quitting options? Am I the only one who sees that as being a redundant step? How many people are we paying for the manning and administration of these programs?

Canada's health-care problem is rooted in our pattern of spending. The OECD shows we spend almost one percentage point more on health care than all 30 countries on average, or 9.9 per cent of GDP in 2003.

For the extra money we spend, we get very few resources. Canada has fewer hospital beds, physicians, MRIs and CTs than the average OECD country. We do have more nurses, but Marlene Smadu, president of the Canadian Nurses Association, explains that the lack of investment in nursing will result in shortages in the near future.

It has been argued that drug costs account for our higher than average spending. In fact, pharmaceutical spending in 2003 accounted for 16.9 per cent of total health spending in Canada, below the OECD average of 17.7 per cent.

The Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) is a prime source of data about national health-care expenditures. Based on CIHI figures, the percentage share of total health-care dollars we invest in hospitals and physicians has decreased significantly since 1975, and we have certainly gotten what we paid for: fewer hospital beds, equipment and physicians.

We are spending money creating administrative positions, instead of on the people and equipment needed to do the actual job. More people running information back and forth to the government, instead of running labs and scanners and performing surgery. We don't need project managers, we need doctors. And instead of forming a task force on hiring them, why don't we skip the task force and just hire them?

Governments, both federal and provincial, need their feet held to the fire of accountability by telling us, clearly, how many MRIs, CTs and hospital beds they are buying, how much is being invested in nurses and physicians and how working conditions are being improved. Accountability necessitates that governments put money into delivering the health care they promise us and that they put it in the right place.

Here, here!

Labels: Canadiana, Health