Seniors Advocate: Home Support Falling Short
A report submitted by the office of the Seniors Advocate: British Columbia’s Home Support program is unaffordable for most seniors, offers too little service for high-need clients and has created a workforce where 75 per cent of staff are casual or part-time, says B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie. In a comprehensive...
Editorial: Things that go BANG and look exciting
“Maim”isn’t a word we often hear these days, but it’s what fireworks too often do – cause blindness, blow people’s hands off, or maybe just a finger or two … add “maim” to your vocabulary, kids, especially if you like playing with fireworks. They can maim you. On ...
Temporary service change: KBRH nuclear medicine
Starting today, work begins to replace old nuclear medicine technology at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital (KBRH) with a new SPECT CT camera, which will provide better images and enhance patient care. Redeveloping the nuclear medicine department is also part of this $1.63 million project, funded by the Province of B.C./Interior...
Overdose deaths would be at least twice as high without emergency harm reduction and treatment response
The rapid expansion of harm reduction services in response to B.C.’s overdose crisis prevented more than 3,000 possible overdose deaths during a 20-month period, suggests new research led by the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC). The study estimates that without access to and rapid scale up of harm reduction and treatment...
Column: How women's periods can affect their bowels
Hormones are the cause of digestive changes or discomfort for many women during their period. Changes in Estrogen and Progesterone before your period starts will cause symptoms such as bloating and constipation. Other women experience diarrhea before or once their period starts and this is due to increased prostaglandins, ...
Blood donation waiting period for men who have sex with men reduced to three months
Health Canada has approved Canadian Blood Services’ request to reduce the blood donation waiting period for men who have sex with men from one year to three months. The change will take effect across the country on June 3, 2019. Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec, Québec’s blood operator, will make the change at the same...
Why Words Matter When We Talk About Addiction
Ed. note: The following is a press release issued by Toward The Heart, the harm reduction arm of the BC Centre for Disease Control: Words and language matter – especially for people who use substances. The terms we use to describe people who use drugs and the conditions associated with drug use can play either a supportive ...
Editorial: Where does our plastic stuff go from here?
We’ve heard a lot recently about the appalling amount of plastic waste being dumped into the world’s oceans and other waterways, and how plastic particles (both micro and macro) are killing off many animals that live and feed in and around the oceans. Are we in the Kootenays contributing to that, I wondered? I phoned up the...
Want Better Health Care? Have Your Say.
The Centre for Rural Health Research wants to hear from YOU. To provide useful evidence for health care planning in BC, the “Rural Evidence Review Project” is seeking input from everyone who cares about the quality of health care in our rural communities, and has ideas about how to improve it. The project is led by Dr. Jude...
Opinion: How Carl Jung inspired Alcoholics Anonymous
By Charles Fox, in Aeon Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual-aid fellowship with more than 2 million members worldwide. It strives to help members ‘stay sober and other alcoholics achieve sobriety’. Despite the fact that studies of its efficacy have been inconsistent, AA has had a significant and long-term...
