Islanders, Manitobans benefiting from pharmacare
This week’s edition of who is saying what about public health care is compiled by Pat Van Horne.
139,000 Manitobans benefiting from pharmacare
“When you tell someone that they don’t have to pay anything, they’re happy,” said Erin MacKenzie, executive director of the P.E.I. Pharmacist Association, to CBC, August 22, 2025
Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara added that some Manitobans are getting certain medications for the first time.
Surviving cancer should not depend on your bank account
“The Canadian Cancer Society estimated that 247,100 Canadians would be diagnosed with some form of (cancer) in 2024. That same year, it was projected that 88,100 people would die from cancer. That’s like losing the entire population of the city of Peterborough, Ont., in just one year. . . Few things are as daunting as fighting cancer. But battling the financial toxicity that so often comes with the disease is a close second. Cancer will cost the average Canadian patient $33,000 in their lifetime. What’s really alarming is that for families with an annual income of less than $50,000, reduced job earnings and out-of-pocket costs due to travel, medication not covered by provincial drug plans, and even hospital parking foregoing treatment,” wrote Kathleen Finlay, founder of the Center for Patient Protection, in The Hill Times, August 20, 2025
Family calls for inquest after teenager dies waiting overnight for emergency treatment
“I can’t let his death be for nothing,” said Hazel van der Werken, whose son died after an overnight wait in an Ontario Emergency Department, to the Globe and Mail, August 20, 2025
COVID shots will be covered by Alberta for health care workers only
“There are plenty of pieces of equipment that you need to keep you safe in a job — any job, whatever that looks like. Having access to these vaccines is part of that conversation,” said Mike Parker, president, Health Sciences Association of Alberta to CBC, August 19, 2025
“I think a lot of people expect there’s going to be another surge of COVID coming in the fall… Putting up barriers for particularly health-care workers that are working with the compromised patients, we thought was very unrealistic… The policy) is an incredible relief,” added David Harrigan, director of labour relations of the United Nurses of Alberta.
Climate change-driven heat a public health crisis for workers, says World Health Organization
“Our bodies essentially lose that (heat) adaptation during the winter period . . . The body essentially gets compromised as we go through the work week . . . If I take a worker on a Monday and look at their body’s capacity to lose heat, they are not the same person by day five . . . They have a reduced capacity to lose heat and that needs to be accounted for,” said Glen Kenny, University of Ottawa research chair in environmental physiology, who contributed to the WHO report, to The Canadian Press, August 22, 2025
Controversy over closed safe injection sites at Association of Ontario Municipalities meeting
“I’m here to tell you that the closure of the (Ottawa) site has rendered absolute chaos in Ottawa’s Chinatown . . . Unless (Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones) can provide the data that supports her argument, we can only assume she’s lying . . . Public health policy shouldn’t be determined by fake statistics or by ideology,” said Ottawa City Councillor Ariel Troster to Ottawa Compass News, August 21, 2025
