Health

Health


Back to School Brings More Than Just the 3Rs

With millions of Canadian children and youth returning to school, public health officials are urging families to get their shots for vaccine-preventable illnesses, including COVID, RSV, flu and measles. Besides seasonal vaccines, experts stress Canadians need to stay up to date on their routine shots as well. Canada lost its official measles elimination status last […]

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Indigenous leader Raoni receives palliative care in Brazil after cancer diagnosis

SAO PAULO (AP) — Renowned Indigenous Chief Raoni Metuktire is receiving palliative care at home in the Brazilian heartland after being diagnosed with cancer at age 94, his institute said Monday. The Raoni Institute said the cancer diagnosis in the chief’s digestive system was confirmed after he was hospitalized in Sao Paulo in June due […]

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Childhood vaccination rates remain stable in Quebec despite the COVID-19 pandemic

As students head back to school across Quebec, data from the province’s public health institute indicate that vaccination rates have remained stable in recent years. Experts say Quebec is in a good position and credit efforts that were made in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. The institute’s vaccine survey finds that the coverage rate […]

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NDP says FOI records show no funding allocated for proposed Yorkton hospital

YORKTON — Saskatchewan NDP MLA Aleana Young says documents obtained through Freedom of Information legislation show no funding has been allocated for a proposed new hospital in Yorkton over the next three fiscal years. Speaking in Yorkton, Young said records received from the Saskatchewan Health Authority contradict statements from the Saskatchewan Party government that money […]

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Ontario man fighting Stage 4 cancer seeking answers on out-of-country coverage denial

Alex Shved is fighting his Stage 4 cancer on two fronts. Medication he is receiving as part of an early-stage trial is working with his body, he hopes, to attack melanoma that has metastasized. At the same time, he is taking up arms against another formidable foe: the health-care bureaucracy. Shved, 37, has tried various […]

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How Many People Are ODing in BC Hospitals? It’s Still a Mystery

After a year of research, which included eight freedom of information requests, dozens of email chains and two appeals to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, The Tyee still doesn’t know how many British Columbians are overdosing in hospitals across the province. We’ve lost our final appeal with the OIPC, which means all […]

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Ontario’s more restrictive transparency law nixes request for health minister records

Ontario’s new and more restrictive freedom-of-information laws have quashed another request, this time for documents that may have given a glimpse into potential hospital cuts. More than 70 per cent of Ontario hospitals are forecasting deficits, and Health Minister Sylvia Jones has told them to come up with three-year plans to balance their budgets. Any […]

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Hundreds of Surrey Memorial Patients Are Overdosing Every Year

Hundreds of patients are having non-fatal overdoses at Surrey Memorial Hospital every year, according to data obtained through a freedom of information request. But fatal overdoses are rare. According to the BC Coroners Service, four people died after taking illicit, unregulated drugs while they were patients at Surrey Memorial between 2020 and 2025. These deaths […]

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Fighting Cancer, Facing Deportation and Denied Health Care

Francisco Barahona is recovering at home with a shattered arm after Surrey Memorial Hospital, he says, refused to treat him on the weekend because of unpaid past bills.  The 53-year-old’s health has been deteriorating over the past three years as a cancer hollowed out his bones and he couldn’t afford health care. Now the government […]

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Massive Edmonton care home battling mice infestation, droppings

Alberta’s Opposition is calling for action and more transparency in the wake of a prolonged mouse infestation at one of Edmonton’s biggest long-term care homes. Covenant Health, along with Assisted Living Minister Jason Nixon, declined requests from The Canadian Press to provide the most recent health inspection report for the Edmonton General Continuing Care Centre, […]

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Amid merger, Grand Erie Public Health managed one of Ontario’s biggest measles outbreaks. Here’s how.

Grand Erie Public Health was born on the first day of 2025, the result of months of merger talks between the health units that had overseen Haldimand-Norfolk and Brantford-Brant. A week later, as staff were still setting up their new email accounts, the measles virus appeared in the largely rural community southwest of Hamilton. That  […]

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Wait for core Ontario autism services tops 5 years: advocates

When Ashley Ferreira’s five-year-old son was diagnosed with autism in 2020 she never imagined that a five-year wait lay ahead for him to get access to government-funded core therapies. “I thought that the diagnosis came with help,” she said. “It wasn’t until I started joining Facebook groups like the Ontario Autism Coalition that I was […]

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