Health
Quebec rejects plea to send army to northern region facing health worker shortage
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MONTREAL — Quebec’s Health Department has rejected a request from officials in the northern region of Nunavik to have Armed Forces members brought in to help ease a shortage of health-care workers.
Kathleen Poulin, a spokeswoman for Nunavik Regional Board of Health, said Wednesday that labour shortages in the health sector are hitting Nunavik particularly hard due to the region’s “remoteness and its specific characteristics.”
“In some of the smaller villages that have only two to four nurses, the briefest absence can require a complete reorganization of activities in order to maintain services,” Poulin said in a statement.
“Considering the sizes of the communities, a handful of (additional) health-care workers can make a big difference in the level of services offered to the population.”
The health board, Poulin said, has been asking Quebec in recent weeks to supply medical workers. That included a request that Ottawa send Armed Forces members who can provide health care after some of Nunavik’s 14 Indigenous communities were forced over the summer to limit their services to emergencies only.
Health Minister Christian Dubé told reporters on Wednesday he would “soon” travel to the region to assess the situation, adding that Quebec has a “contingency plan” to handle the crisis.
“We have five or six paramedics already on their way, and doctors from other provinces that offered to help,” Dubé said.
The department, however, opted to seek the Canadian Red Cross’s help in Nunavik rather than the army, Dubé said, as the organization “helped a lot during the pandemic.” The department said the request for Armed Forces support was received Aug. 2.
“It’s a question of who’s the best and most appropriate group to complete our staff,” Dubé said. “The situation is already better than what it was.”
But Charlie Lapointe-Robert, a nurse who works in Inukjuak at the Inuulitsivik Health Centre, said Dubé’s statement is misleading. She said rather than being able to offer proper care to the community, health-care workers are forced to tell residents to “be careful.”
“We’re the ones who are supposed to take care of them,” Lapointe-Robert said in an interview on Wednesday, adding that her health centre still doesn’t know when to expect help from the government.
“We are accumulating delays, blood tests that need to be done, children’s vaccinations, followups, cancer prevention that isn’t done .… The situation is not better than it was. We are heading toward a greater crisis.”
The labour shortage in Nunavik’s health sector is not new — and neither are the requests for government action, Lapointe-Robert said.
The nurse, who’s currently on vacation in Montreal, said she doesn’t understand why it took so long to create a contingency plan as it is now a matter of days before the community could be left with no nurses on duty.
“We are on a tightrope, there is a risk of error and incredible tragedy,” she said, adding that normally up to six nurses are working in Inukjuak.
Poulin said a labour shortage affecting the entire province has left nursing agencies unable to meet the demand.
“Summer means vacation for many. It is necessary for the workers to take some time off, mostly after two years of COVID-19. Again, just a few people more or less make a big difference.”
The union representing nurses in the northern region, the Syndicat nordique des infirmières et infirmiers de la Baie d’Hudson, said it has been warning the government about the situation since last year.
“We are in a G7 country and I believe that the Inuit communities of Hudson Bay have a right to quality health care,” union president Cyril Gabreau said on social media. “Actions could have been taken yesterday to avoid tomorrow’s catastrophe.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Aug. 10, 2022.
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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Virginie Ann, The Canadian Press
Health
RCMP warn about benzodiazepine-laced fentanyl tied to overdose in Alberta – Edmonton Journal
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Grande Prairie RCMP issued a warning Friday after it was revealed fentanyl linked to a deadly overdose was mixed with a chemical that doesn’t respond to naloxone treatment.
The drugs were initially seized on Feb. 28 after a fatal overdose, and this week, Health Canada reported back to Mounties that the fentanyl had been mixed with Bromazolam, which is a benzodiazepine.
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Mounties say this is the first recorded instance of Bromazolam in Alberta. The drug has previously been linked to nine fatal overdoses in New Brunswick in 2022.
The pills seized in Alberta were oval-shaped and stamped with “20” and “SS,” though Mounties say it can come in other forms.
Naloxone treatment, given in many cases of opioid toxicity, is not effective in reversing the effects of Bromazalam, Mounties said, and therefore, any fentanyl mixed with the benzodiazepine “would see a reduced effectiveness of naloxone, requiring the use of additional doses and may still result in a fatality.”
From January to November of last year, there were 1,706 opioid-related deaths in Alberta, and 57 linked to benzodiazepine, up from 1,375 and 43, respectively, in 2022.
Mounties say officers responded to about 1,100 opioid-related calls for service, last year with a third of those proving fatal. RCMP officers also used naloxone 67 times while in the field, a jump of nearly a third over the previous year.
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Health
CFIA continues surveillance for HPAI in cattle, while sticking with original name for disease – RealAgriculture
The Canada Food Inspection Agency will continue to refer to highly pathogenic avian influenza in cattle as HPAI in cattle, and not refer to it as bovine influenza A virus (BIAV), as suggested by the American Association of Bovine Practitioners earlier this month.
Dr. Martin Appelt, senior director for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, in the interview below, says at this time Canada will stick with “HPAI in cattle” when referencing the disease that’s been confirmed in dairy cattle in multiple states in the U.S.
The CFIA’s naming policy is consistent with the agency’s U.S. counterparts’, as the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has also said it will continue referring to it as HPAI or H5N1.
Appelt explains how the CFIA is learning from the U.S. experience to-date, and how it is working with veterinarians across Canada to stay vigilant for signs of the disease in dairy and beef cattle.
As of April 19, there has not been a confirmed case of HPAI in cattle in Canada. Appelt says it’s too soon to say if an eventual positive case will significantly restrict animal movement, as is the case with positive poultry cases.
This is a major concern for the cattle industry, as beef cattle especially move north and south across the U.S. border by the thousands. Appelt says that CFIA will address an infection in each species differently in conjunction with how the disease is spread and the threat to neighbouring farms or livestock.
Currently, provincial dairy organizations have advised producers to postpone any non-essential tours of dairy barns, as a precaution, in addition to other biosecurity measures to reduce the risk of cattle contracting HPAI.
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Health
Toronto reports 2 more measles cases. Use our tool to check the spread in Canada – Toronto Star
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Canada has seen a concerning rise in measles cases in the first months of 2024.
By the third week of March, the country had already recorded more than three times the number of cases as all of last year. Canada had just 12 cases of measles in 2023, up from three in 2022.
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