Health files
This edition of Health files covers NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s comments on health care, the home care crisis, and calls to address systemic racism in health care.
Singh confident in deal with Liberals heading into new year
“I think it has been an opportunity for us to fight for people, to use our power to get things done. We know there is more to do, but we’re proud that we’ve been able to be helpful. . . We’re very confident that (pharmacare) will be delivered as a part of what we forced the government to agree to,” Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh told CTV Question Period, Dec. 11, 2022.
On the other hand . . .
“If we don’t see action on health care, we absolutely reserve the right to withdraw our support. This is at the level of seriousness that we could make that consideration. We need to see action,” said Singh to CBC News, Dec. 12, 2022.
Woman confined to bed for months due to lack of home care
“We’ve done nothing to shore up the home care system, especially post-COVID. If anything should have shored it up it would have been a pandemic with a respiratory virus and the need to have people be treated at home and not at clinics — but that didn’t happen. . . It just seems like the old mantra of cuts, crisis and sell off,” Thomas Linner, provincial director of the Manitoba Health Coalition in the Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 13, 2022.
New chief public health officer wants to tackle systemic racism in health care
“(My goal is) to help providers give better care to Indigenous populations all over the country and particularly in Nunavut. . . systemic racism in Canada’s delivery of health care is by design. By having a system that was created for and by the people who colonized the country, it does not recognize the needs of Indigenous people,” said Dr. Sean Wachtel in Nunatsiaq News, Dec. 10, 2022.
Health Canada to call for better drug trial data to address gaps affecting women, racialized populations
“Women have been calling for more stringent accountability by federal regulators for drug approvals for women for over 30 years. I am thrilled that Health Canada is taking leadership,” wrote Dr. Cara Tannenbaum, a women’s health researcher and professor at the University of Montreal in the The Globe and Mail, Dec. 12, 2022
Canadian Blood Services says it wants Black Canadians to donate, but expert says barriers persist
“During the ’80s and ’90s, Black communities, specifically Haitian communities, were told that it was their fault that there was HIV and AIDS in Canada, partly due to donating blood… And then in 1998, when Canadian Blood Services started, they perpetuated the argument that AIDS came from Africa and if you were born and or lived in Africa, you can’t donate,” said OmiSoore Dryden, associate professor at Dalhousie University who studies blood donation protocols and anti-Black racism in health care, CBC News Nova Scotia, Dec. 12, 2022.
