A nurse is not just a nurse
Recently, well-known health-care journalist, André Picard wrote that “a bed is not just a bed.” In the context of patient care, a bed, in and of itself, doesn’t guarantee that a patient is getting the right kind of care in the right place. The bed, and more importantly the type and location of the bed, […]
‘It’s getting worse, we’re going backwards’: Ontario MPs say constituents confused, frustrated, angry with vaccine supply issues, and partisan ‘finger-pointing’ as COVID cases skyrocket
Canada’s most populous province is facing an increasingly uphill battle in reining in the pandemic with new cases of COVID-19 hitting all-time highs last week, intensive-care units stretched to capacity, and what a number of Ontario MPs describe as confusion, frustration, and anger with the vaccine rollout among their constituents. Ontario recorded 4,250 new COVID-19 […]
What a ‘return to normalcy’ in a post-COVID world means for children
It has been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world. During that time, babies have been born, schools have been closed, loved ones have passed away, and our way of living has changed significantly. However, as more and more Canadian adults roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated, the reality of a […]
If the plan is to turn Labrador or some other part of the country into a nuclear dump, the public should know why
HALIFAX—The world, and Canada with it, is inundated with emergencies. It is hard to know where to point the firehose. There is climate change, of course, where humanity has put itself at risk by discharging our pollution into the atmosphere. We have given the planet a potentially fatal fever, and fumbled most disgracefully with bringing […]
Three lessons learned from the COVID-19 global pandemic and how we can prepare for the next one
As a health educator and academic leader at Dalhousie University, I have seen first-hand and contributed to the massive effort to adapt all of our systems of teaching and research over the past year to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and ensure that the highest standards of health education are met within our faculty. […]
A ‘once-in-a-generation’ chance to reset vaccine innovation in Canada
The $925-million public-private partnership to enhance the manufacturing capacity of Sanofi’s influenza vaccine facility in Toronto is only the latest in a string of deals meant to protect Canada against this, if not future, pandemics. Occupying the grounds of what was once “Connaught Labs,” Canada’s famed, publicly controlled vaccine manufacturer, the transfer of $470-million in […]
The problem is pandemics and Canadian university research is the solution
For more than a year now, the world has been on a crisis footing after the emergence of a frightening new virus for which there was no known prevention, treatment, or cure. The pandemic’s ravages—including illness, death, economic upheaval, and social isolation—have hit Canada hard, and other countries, with fewer resources, even harder. Though the […]
The COVID-19 vaccine rollout debacle: how did we get here?
In 1957, Herbert Simon came up with the idea of “Bounded Rationality,” for which he eventually won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978. Bounded rationality states that, because of cognitive limitations, we do not make decisions rationally, but only try to get by or manage. The term that was coined in this context is “satisficing” […]
We need to open the black-box relationship between public health officers and politicians
OTTAWA—Did you know that about 140 countries had zero new COVID cases last week? Canada has suffered about 67 deaths per one million population and ranks 60th in the world. Canada is falling behind with poorly executed and politicized public health measures, complicated by each jurisdiction making up its own rules. Some provinces and territories […]
Canada will need ‘intensive collaboration’ between provinces, territories, and federal government for next pandemic, say experts
In the fall of 1918, thousands of Canadians were dying on the battlefields of Europe in the First World War. Once the war ended on Nov. 11, 1918, however, the dying continued on the home front. The Spanish flu was reaching its crescendo that fall having first appeared in the spring, though it went “basically […]
