The workforce pressure on our increasingly strained health-care system is not a Human Resources (HR) problem; it’s a human problem that affects every single person in the chain of care, from physicians and Personal Support Workers to the administrative teams who hold it all together.
In modern health care, we still behave as though safety is primarily a function of individual vigilance. When something goes wrong, health-care providers will instinctively ask “what could I have done differently?” instead of addressing a more uncomfortable question “how did our systems make this mistake more likely?” This is understandable as many enter the health-care profession firmly grounded in the principle of “first, do no harm.”
During a rural posting in West Africa, I once saw people at a religious centre locked up, chained to poles and subjected to harsh conditions because they were “addicted to drugs,” brought by their family members who believed they were “demon possessed” or needed “spiritual deliverance.” I remember being shocked and moved to tears at these attempts to detoxify or rehabilitate – but without evidence-based care, compassion, dignity or an understanding of the illness itself.
Hepatitis C kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year; in Canada it results in more lost years of life than any other infectious disease. An effective treatment exists, but it is unavailable to many because of cost and other access obstacles. And there is no vaccine. Canada has the researchers, the policy framework and the capacity to help change that.
In May, Ontario’s Auditor General released a special report on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Ontario government, including medical “AI scribes” that are increasingly being used by doctors, including us. While headlines and coverage focused mainly on so-called scribe hallucinations of these AI note-taking systems, that wasn’t the biggest news in the report.
Scrolling through social media, it’s easy to feel like health advice is everywhere. A creator shares a routine that “changed everything.” Another explains how they fixed their gut health. A clinician posts quick tips between patient visits. The tone is confident, personal – and above all, authentic.
Many low-income seniors are standing on the edge of a financial precipice. As family physicians and health promoters at St. Michael’s Family Health Team, we do everything we can to support our patients through these challenges. But for every person we help, thousands of others fall through the cracks with no one to catch them.
Alberta does not have to choose between recovery and harm reduction. A serious recovery-oriented system would protect both, investing in treatment beds and recovery communities, but also in the low-barrier services that keep people alive long enough to use them.
byMohamed Elsayed ElghobashyKanish BaskaranEdwin Wong
Patients living in Canadian rural and remote communities often move across multiple systems simply to access basic care. Bill S-5 represents an important first step toward addressing a problem.
We cannot build a humane health-care system by forcing families to choose between unaffordable charges and unsafe or unsuitable care. That is not choice. That is pressure disguised as policy.
Canada can regain its measles elimination status, but only after we interrupt transmission for a full year. That requires hitting the 95 per cent herd immunity threshold.
If we are serious about improving health outcomes, particularly for populations navigating systemic barriers, creative expression should not be treated as an add-on. It should be recognized as a practical, accessible component of care.
Youth are already talking about sexual health online every day. The question is whether trusted institutions are willing to meet them there – not with judgment, but with honesty, empathy and respect.
Long emergency wait times are now widely recognized as a structural problem. But children should not deteriorate unnoticed in emergency department waiting areas.
Canadians are increasingly finding themselves in an impossible position: treatments could be approved yet remain inaccessible. Friedreich ataxia (FA) has become a powerful example of that reality.
For newcomer survivors of gender-based domestic violence, expressive arts are not decorative. They are a practical, culturally responsive component of recovery.
As physicians, we should absolutely continue improving access to mental health care. At the same time, we should also be willing to ask larger questions about the kind of society people are attempting to stay mentally well within.