Around 6000 cis male, a few cis female and a few transgender people commit mass shootings in N.A. in a decade. Clearly, everyone (especially men) will see the overwhelming pattern here and ask what they can do to prevent violence perpetuated by boys and men. Right? Right…?
In 2020, Ontario began pushing some of its publicly funded cataract surgeries into private, for-profit clinics. Why what happened next, writes @alisonmotluk.bsky.social, offers a window into the possible future of care in this province. thelocal.to/cataract-sur...
The rise in under-qualified hires at childcare centres has shot up more than 1000% in 5 years. Rather than addressing the ECE shortage by improving wages and working conditions, the Ontario government is choosing to "paper over the crisis," advocates say. My latest:
thelocal.to/ontarios-day...
From Senator Chris McDaniel: “Lately, some folks have taken to calling ICE “the Gestapo.” It sounds fierce. It feels righteous. But it isn’t true, and it isn’t harmless. The Gestapo was a secret police force. No warrants. No courts. No lawyers. And no appeals. People vanished in the night, not because they broke the law, but because the law no longer meant anything. The knock on the door was the sentence. ICE isn’t that. Not even close. ICE is a public agency enforcing laws passed by elected officials. Its agents file reports. They seek warrants. They lose cases. Judges stop them. Lawyers challenge them. Some detainees go home. That’s not tyranny. That’s bureaucracy, for better and worse. You can hate immigration policy. You can argue enforcement is too harsh, too sloppy, or too broad. You can work to have the law changed if you wish. That’s a republic doing what it’s supposed to do. But when you call ordinary law enforcement “the Gestapo,” you cheapen real evil. You turn history into a slogan and suffering into a metaphor. And once every badge is tyranny, no tyranny is left to recognize. In Mississippi, I was raised to believe words should earn their weight. This one hasn't yet. It throws around the language of dictatorship while living under a system where courts still rule, lawyers still argue, and the government still loses. That difference matters. Because the day enforcement becomes secret, unchecked, and answerable to no one, we won’t need to borrow names from history. We’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with. And we’ll wish we’d kept our words honest.”
“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)
This awful story about a dying woman forced to endure a painful transfer to obtain MAID has a kernel of hope within it.
This may *finally* be the beginning of the end of Catholic hospital impunity in Canada, which legally stands on very thin ice but hasn't been forcefully challenged. Yet.
1/3
What happens when ChatGPT meets a crumbling journalism industry meets, perhaps, an intrepid young person in Nigeria with few economic options? At least there are still writers/editors like @nickhunebrown.bsky.social out there.
There is often a very important difference between terror attacks in the US versus elsewhere and that key difference is not background levels of antisemitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, racism, political rhetoric etc. globalnews.ca/news/1146091...
Good questions. But I wish colleagues would stop assuming that a building is good because it is new. TDSB’s new schools are in fact very bad, and expensive, and their handling of their real estate portfolio has been abysmal.
What happens to $20 B worth of land under provincial supervision. The province didn't respond to my questions, the TDSB can't speak to media. My latest for @thelocal.to thelocal.to/tdsb-takeove...
The AI "enhanced" photos of the Utah shooting suspect tells me one thing - people don't understand how AI works.
We can choose to take care of each other, which means demanding proper funding and accountability in our health system.
Thanks for reading. Thanks especially to Rheanna's sister, Kassandra, for advocating in hopes others don't have to suffer as she has.
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
I am in awe of the compassionate and brilliant health workers who work in Ontario - including those who helped answer my many medical Qs as I wrote this. We can have a world-class health system here. Many of us can remember when ERs weren't crowded, when specialists weren't booked years in advance.
Health workers and families have been sounding alarms for years about severe underfunding of health care.
There have been two other major stories in the past week about sepsis deaths in Ontario hospitals. A mother who left behind three children, including a newborn. And an 18-year-old boy.
Zooming out further, it wasn't just the ER that failed Rheanna. It was also the larger health system -- specialist consults were delayed and nurses fought for hours to get Rheanna transferred to the ICU. An ICU doctor was cautioned for missing red flags and dismissing nurses' concerns.
She explains that female physicians practice differently than male physicians, and their presence can positively influence the practices of their male colleagues. (Despite the "woke" battles, studies objectively show that diversity in health care leads to better outcomes for everyone).
Dr. Michelle Cohen, one of the physicians who initially complained about Dr. Duic, points out that other male emergency doctors who saw Rheanna also didn't take her symptoms as seriously as they should have.
On the second visit, it was Dr. Duic who saw her. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario found his management of Rheanna “showed a lack of knowledge, skill and judgment” and pointed out he had been cautioned or counselled four times in the past. His license was suspended.
In early 2022, 19-year-old Rheanna Laderoute visited Southlake emerg, explaining she had an abortion 2 weeks earlier and was still experiencing pain and bleeding - concerning signs of an infection. She would visit the hospital three times total, in the space of 10 days, before she died of sepsis.
After that investigation, Dr. Marko Duic resigned as chief but he continued to practice as a physician at Southlake hospital's emerg. Since 2018, Southlake added 2 women to its emergency department of 17 physicians -- it remains an outlier when compared to other departments its size.
In 2018, I investigated a story for the Globe about a doctor who didn't hire female physicians over a 16 year period, as emergency dept chief at two different hospitals in the GTA. Health workers shared discriminatory comments he had made to and about women, and allegations about his patient care.
I've been 💔 about this case ever since I learned about it several months ago. Rheanna Laderoute deserved so much more than what she got at Southlake hospital.
Terrific reporting as always from @wendyglauser.bsky.social, who has been holding Southlake and Marko Duic to account since 2018.
What's most concerning about the Ford government's takeover of school boards is that the provincial government doesn't seem to want to talk to media about it. thelocal.to/school-board...
Sometimes, it’s just best to hire a medical writer.
I don't often get to write about working conditions and pay issues in health care, even though they're massively important to wait times and care quality.
It was an honour to work with @maddidellplain.bsky.social, Dr. Sahil Gupta, Nicole Naimer, and Dr. Maria Raveendran on this series.
Given the state of journalism, there are far too many stories we’re not hearing about the state of health care. I’m so glad for @monicakidd.bsky.social, an expert in both realms, and her journalism - thewalrus.ca/private-heal...
Enraging
@tuthanhha.bsky.social the link is fixed in this one :)
