When the pandemic started and social distancing necessitated a switch to virtual care almost overnight, our digital health-care system struggled and sometimes failed entirely. This broken system must end now. Here's how we can fix it.
People joke that they don't like going to the dentist, but for some, a trip to the dentist can actually trigger past traumas. The trauma-informed dentistry movement is trying to make dentists' offices places where vulnerable patients feel safe.
Despite pandemic-induced grueling work schedules and stressful work environments, nursing programs have never been as popular. In Ontario alone, applications to registered nursing (RN) programs rose 17.6 per cent from 2020 to 2021.
It's a battle to wake up and choose the hijab each day. I truly believe in this aspect of my faith, but the fear and experience of harassment and discrimination is a form of oppression I endure. I know this is a feeling shared by my peers in medicine.
COVID-19 has exposed the longstanding frailty of our health-care system. The truth is that every flu season, our hospitals burst at the seams. Hard-working health-care workers have held the system together so far. It’s past time to create the system they deserve.
COVID-19 has created unprecedented burnout levels among health-care workers, causing serious mental health crises. The situation is dire – but not hopeless. We need a multifaceted approach to alleviating burnout. Here's what such an approach looks like.
Some argue that since Omicron is less severe than previous variants and all Canadians will likely be infected eventually, why not “let it rip” and be done with it? But there are three fundamental problems with this approach.
Many infectious disease practitioners pivoted from HIV to COVID when the pandemic struck. Now, some of them are sharing their views on what we’ve learned, where we’ve repeated mistakes, and how we can move forward.
Nurses hold the health-care system together, even as many are suffering from burnout and leaving the profession. In this photo-essay, nurses speak about the little things they carry with them to stay motivated and connect with patients and colleagues.
The holistic style of community care that is the backbone of health care in rural northern Ontario is in jeopardy. If we care about equity, those in northern Ontario must have equitable access to the opportunity to live and die well in their communities.
Improving health care must begin by recognizing the interconnected webs of colonization woven into all health-care systems in Canada. A good place to start would be at the beginning – with maternity care and birth.
We may need to close schools for short periods of time when the spread of COVID-19 gets out of control, since doing so decreases community mobility and, by extension, transmission. We should also be wary of the narrative that schools are not significant sites of transmission, which might be more politically advantageous than scientifically accurate.
We should not rule out school closures, since even though the short-term consequences of COVID-19 on children generally appear to be mild, they are not always benign – and no-one even knows what the long-term effects are. Furthermore, transmission does occur within schools, which can endanger not only schoolchildren but the broader community.
We should never have closed schools because there is no compelling reason to do so. Not only are children at very low risk of developing severe COVID-19, but schools are also not significant sites of transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
Schools should not be closed due to COVID-19 because children are at low risk of serious harm from the disease and do not spread it to others to a significant degree. In fact, closing schools causes far more harm to children than it prevents.
Closing schools violates two rights safeguarded in the Convention on the International Rights of the Child. By infringing these rights, we have caused serious harm to our kids, despite the fact that schools never posed a serious danger to kids or the community at large.
Many parents are hesitant to vaccinate their children. But choosing not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice, but rather a choice to take another, more serious risk. In fact, it could be one of the most important health decisions parents will make.
Life hasn’t gone back to normal – it’s moved to another new normal. So how can we support our kids in this new phase of the pandemic? One way is to ease up on academic pressures. Instead of getting our kids caught up, we need to catch up with our kids.
For the Ford government, midwives' demands for equitable pay are unacceptable. But instead of using tax dollars to fight midwives in court, Ford should recognize gender-based inequities, address the pay gap and invest in rural and northern midwifery programs.