Policy and Politics

814 articles:
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by Anthony Fong

‘All the trends paint a dire picture’: B.C. facing looming shortage of family physicians

As many as 40 per cent of British Columbia’s family doctors may retire in the next 10 years, leaving millions in B.C. without a family doctor.

by Anthony Fong

Nunavut struggling with crisis that ‘won’t go away’

Food insecurity in Nunavut has been called “among the longest-lasting public health crises faced by a Canadian population.”
by W.A. Bogart

Making the case for drug reform: Zwarenstein’s On Opium

The movement for reform in this country of non-medical use of drugs seems unstoppable. There are many drivers of change and a major one is the opioid crisis.
by Maggie Hulbert Adriana Di Stefano Gina Nicoll

Fund vital mental health interventions, not more policing

Mental health crises have been inextricably linked to policing and criminal justice. But a mental health crisis is exactly that – a health issue, not a criminal one.

by Arnav Agarwal Pooja Gandhi

Health Care in Hues: Standing Strong Against Misinformation

Physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other allied health professionals continue to wade through rapidly evolving evidence to provide care to patients and keep the health-care system upright.
by Idil Abdillahi Anne Rucchetto

College must act to ensure equitable health-care outcomes for women, marginalized communities

Differences in surgical outcomes between men and women may be part of a larger gendered public health crisis.
by Colleen Fuller

History matters – a century after insulin’s discovery, we’re going backwards

As a Canadian with Type 1 diabetes I’m dismayed by the way pharmaceutical companies have driven up insulin prices, created a global oligarchy and increased the burden on those who need this life-giving medicine.
by Daneese Rao

‘It will take time to rebuild trust’: Travel bans upended lives of African students in Canada

Following the emergence of Omicron in late November, Canada and several other countries placed travel restrictions on 10 African nations. While the measures are no longer in force, their effects will be felt for a long time to come.
by Katharine Lake Berz

My friend joined the vaccine exodus, but I still can’t wait to welcome her back

I once thought all anti-vaxxers were selfish, putting their “freedom” before the common good. Then a close friend moved to Florida to escape Canada’s vaccine mandates. Now, I hope we can mend fractures in our communities for the good of society.
by Andrew McRae

Living with endemic SARS-CoV-2 isn’t the same as ‘back to normal’

As provinces scrap vaccine passports and other public health measures, more and people people are speaking about “living with the virus." But this does not mean that we can live as we did before the pandemic. Public health measures will continue.
by Catherine Varner

‘I do not want to be spat on, punched or kicked’: Exodus of emergency physicians accelerating

As anti-vaxx protests continue in front of hospitals across Canada, emergency physicians are saying enough is enough and leaving their profession behind.
by Catherine Varner

‘The well is starting to run dry’: Emergency department physicians speak out

Representatives of Toronto Women in Emergency Medicine, a group of emergency physicians working in hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area, were asked to reflect on their experiences of the most recent wave and what health-care systems can do to survive the next one.
by Damian Lange

Adding more beds is not the solution to overcrowding in Canadian hospitals

The reality is that more hospital beds are not going to be the panacea for our health-care system that many want, hope and need them to be. Instead, there are several ways to drive improvements in the national health-care structures.

by Kathleen Finlay

Making compassion the new normal

Here’s another supply-chain challenge created by the coronavirus: the delivery of more compassion by our governments and public institutions. It's time our major institutions committed to acting compassionately.

by Danyaal Raza Wendy Lai

A recipe for hope: How to vaccinate the world and end the pandemic

Researchers have developed a new COVID-19 vaccine, and they have no intention of filing a patent. Instead, they have concrete plans for large-scale manufacturing in the Global South. This is what global vaccine equity looks like.
by Françoise Baylis

Premier Legault comes to his senses

By backing down from the threat of a tax on the unvaccinated, Premier Legault has narrowly avoided yet another policy debacle in the wasteland of COVID public-health policy in Canada.
by Jeremy Cygler

Safer supply prescribing not enough to end devastating opioid epidemic, experts say

Safer Opioid Supply is an attention-grabbing, controversial approach to combatting the opioid crisis. But for all the debate, both its proponents and critics in addictions medicine tend to agree that there is much more to addressing the opioid epidemic.
by Gwyneth Boone

‘Benzo-dope’ wave complicating fight against opioid epidemic

A wave of benzodiazepines is adulterating Toronto’s illegal opioid market, raising risks for users, complicating the fight against the opioid crisis, and imposing extra burdens on a COVID-stretched emergency response system.
by Kirstin Weerdenburg

It’s all about the fit: Parents should focus on proper usage rather than mask type for children

Frenzied parents across Canada are scouring stores and online sites for child-sized respirator-type masks, like N95s or KN95s, as children return to school for in-person learning, but their efforts may be misplaced. Correct mask usage is far more important than the mask model.

Enough with the harassment: How to deal with anti-vax cults

The anti-vaxxers who protested outside of my own home because I'm a medical officer of health demonstrate cultish behaviour. Here's how we counter them.

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