A Person abuses medication, illicit drugs, and booze to the point of full-blown addiction.
Someone who lives outside in the cold cruel world. Perhaps mentally ill, homeless or transient. This person tries to live in weather that is negged -30 in the cold of winter.
Someone who does things that put themselves and others at risk through their own actions.
Why do I gather such people together as one group? They are all in need, have no control over their afflictions, and often oppose those that try to help them. Statistically not many of them “graduate” from our society’s plentiful social programs that attempt to help them. Are they suicidal?
Are the above-mentioned situations describe a person out of control? Perhaps even suicidal in thought and actions? Is suicide not only frowned upon, socially unacceptable and in fact a crime?
Well with the direction our society is evolving towards, the above-mentioned individuals along with the very ill, the pain inflicted and mentally lost souls of society will have a chance at erasing themselves soon enough. Yes, many have killed themselves through assisted suicide(particularly in B.C.). Our laws seem to have given up on these folks, possibly giving them the ability to finish their lives by their own hands, as they’d like.
If one is suicidal does that not direct our society to protect these individuals in every way we can? Is not putting yourself out there, with the chance of freezing to death suicidal? Taking illegal substances that could also be laced with fentanyl suicidal? Drinking alcohol until your liver gives up the ghost suicide?
Is not driving while under the influence, threatening your life and the lives of others both suicidal and criminal?
If suicide is criminal, and we can come to see that the many threatening actions mentioned above are suicidal then can our society not act directly to save, protect and hopefully preserve these people’s lives.
Taking illicit drugs is done by mentally challenged people. No one in their right mind would take drugs that are lethal and also laced with who knows what.
Idea: Declare the actions of self-harm to be criminal, only as a way to detain, interview, detox and carry out therapy for these individuals. Three months of detox, interviews, personal counselling, medical physicals, and feeding nourishment while allowing these individuals to become better. If they seek more of the same, so be it. If someone commits a crime, they lose some of their rights, so by directing the justice system to declare that self-harm is criminal, society can force those out of control, to begin a process of betterment.
Many nations see suicide and self-harm as criminal acts. Often those charged are placed in institutions that can direct their health and welfare process. Once, long ago society promoted the idea that those with mental and physical exhaustion and stress had the option to go to institutions of betterment. That is something that can happen once again. The costs of addiction, mental health and homelessness can be redirected to make the lives of these people better. Ending useless deaths. Our medical and social services are at a cliff point, not having anywhere to go, and often hopelessness prevails. So our professionals are at a loss on what to do. They all know that there is a process available that can help those suffering from addictions, mental illness and hopelessness, but one factor lies out of their reach…they cannot force someone to get better, force them to walk away from the horrors of addiction. Voluntary services often do not work. 18% of those who go to these services will improve their lot, the rest will not, or back fall in time to their self-destructive ways.
The elderly will eventually revert to their youthful state, where society will need to assist them in all things. Those who are helpless, addicted and full of fear will do the same, but for the greater chance of dying from drugs and alcohol abuse. The mentally ill and addicted folks have a far greater chance of dying well before their time. Take away the drug of choice, and grant them assistance and needed time to change their ways, while away from the environments that threatened them, and you may have a winning solution.
Addiction-Mental Health Crisis vs Personal Freedom(temporarily limited).
Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.
The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.
Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.
Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.
Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.
The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
-With files from Nicole Ireland
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.
Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.
The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.
“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”
The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”
Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.
If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.
Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.
The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.
