Genetic mapping of Quebec commences

Efforts to create a genetic map of Quebec begin in earnest this month as researchers start recruiting people willing to offer up their bodies' blueprints.

The University of Montréal-driven project aims to sign up the first 400 people from Montreal, Monteregie and the Eastern Townships, with the aim of eventually collecting data on health and disease from just over 20,000 people.

The government-funded project is expected to create one of the largest data and biobanks in Quebec and will be made available to health researchers.

"The genome of each human being contains enormous quantities of information. The analysis of this information can increase our understanding of the underlying processes of health and disease," Dr. Claude Laberge, a geneticist and scientific director of the CARTaGENE project, said in a release.

The initial subjects, all between the ages of 40 and 69, will be selected at random using a list provided by the province's health insurance board.

Laberge says focusing on subjects in this age group means researchers know they will find that one-third are already coping with a variety of ailments including hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and arthritis.

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Major investments in Health Care in Calgary and Edmonton

The Alberta Cunstruction Magazine reports there's a lot of work to be done in the years to come.

For Health and Wellness for just the two regions, there’s more than $1.6 billion worth of work. For advanced education, there’s $250 million for Calgary and more than $400 million for Edmonton over the next four years.

A number of factors are driving the construction boom in health care facilities: an aging population, an increase in population in high-growth areas such as Fort McMurray, and a desire to keep Alberta on the leading edge in research, technology, and world-class facilities.

The Alberta government reports funding for Health and Wellness is up $1.3 billion (12.2 per cent) for the 2007–08 budget year.
Over the next three years, the Alberta government has slated $2.6 billion for health facilities, including $250 million to replace the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Grande Prairie, $221 million to cover cost escalation on health projects that have already been approved, and $26.4 million for the Northern Lights Health Region to build infrastructure for health care providers in the regions and new community health clinics.
In addition, a helicopter platform will be added at the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre.

Money will also go towards 30 previously approved projects.
Those include construction of community health centres in Red Deer, Calgary, and Edmonton, as well as long-term care facilities in Red Deer, Edmonton, High Prairie, Vermilion, and Vegreville.

The new multi-use facilities will offer excellence in health care for patients and learning opportunities for post-secondary students.

For instance, the Edmonton Clinic, a partnership between Capital Health and University of Alberta, models itself after the Mayo Clinic, a one-stop shop that houses multiple clinics in one place.
Construction, expected to open in 2011 at a cost of $909 million, begins this year.

In Calgary, 2008 marks the first full year of work on the $1.25-billion South Health Campus. The campus will bring together wellness, health research and education on a 44-acre campus located at Deerfoot Trail and 196th Avenue SE.

The 160,000 sq.m health campus will consist of heath services, including surgery and operating rooms, pediatrics, obstetrics, mental heath, as well as emergency and outpatient services. It will also focus on wellness services and research and education. Phase I is scheduled to open in the spring of 2011.

More Canadians should get tax-incentive to start exercising

If we look at the numbers according to Obesity Canada, a network of health care professionals, as many as 25% of all teens and 50% of all adults in Canada are overweight.

A staggering 10%-12% of adult Canadians are classified as obese, putting them at serious risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes, to name but a few of the threats they are exposed to.
The leading factors in the 'obesity epidemic' are a poor diet and inactive lifestyles.

Therefore, a New Year's resolution of the Harper government should be to get more Canadians off their couches and start exercising.
In 2007, the Tories already made a great step in the good direction with the introduction of the Children's Fitness Tax Credit, which allows parents to claim on their income tax a portion of the fees they pay to enroll their kids in sports.

The government really needs to expand the program now and include everyone over the age of 16.
Rewarding people for joining health clubs or signing up for recreational sports programs is a simple, yet effective way to get more Canadians active in our increasingly sedentary society.

Over the years, governments leaned toward using the 'stick-approach' to improving our health, but shaming and hectoring people through nagging awareness campaigns, food labelling, tobacco-use restrictions and the like will only go so far.

Now it's time to start offering rewards to people for making healthy choices.

Allowing people to claim only a portion of activity fees on their taxes will be a safeguard against abusers simply buying a gym membership as a tax write-off and then never showing up, but it will still reward people genuinely trying to get healthier.

In the long run, all Canadians will benefit.
More people leading healthy lifestyles will ease pressure on our overburdened health care system.

Source: Winnipeg Sun

Children's Hospital in London, Ont., to recruit 4 new heart doctors

An all-out effort will be made in 2008 to recruit at least three new children’s heart doctors to London, the head of the city’s hospitals said.

“It is very, very important to me to sustain Children’s Hospital and therefore we are going to devote a lot of time and energy to try and make this happen,” said Cliff Nordal, president of both London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care.

Both of London’s children’s heart doctors, Dr. Dion Pepelassis and Dr. Ilan Buffo, have resigned to accept positions at Winnipeg Children’s Hospital at the end of June.

"London needs a minimum of three of the specialists to provide a sustainable service and will try to hire four by the end of 2008, " Nordal said.

“We will be looking as well at international medical graduates that are in training in Canada.”

Nordal called the loss of the two children’s heart specialists “a blip” in an otherwise successful drive to recruit health care professionals to London.

Faced with the closure of hospital beds because of a lack of nurses, London Health Sciences Centre set a target last February to hire 450 new nurses.
To date, the hospital has recruited about 340, allowing it to reopen all of the closed beds.

“We expect by the end of March we will reach our target,” Nordal said.

The closed beds contributed to extended waits for patients in the city’s emergency departments and led to the cancellation of some surgeries.

"Not all the problems will be solved with the beds reopened," Nordal said.

The hospital still has difficulties providing enough beds for acute care because 40 to 70 beds are occupied by people waiting for placement in long-term care facilities or back into the community.

The Ontario government announced it will expand the number of long-term care beds in the London area by 600, but those beds won’t be available until late 2010.

St. Joseph’s Health Care has proposed to the Health Ministry that it opens 50 beds at the Parkwood Hospital site, at least on a temporary basis, to reduce the pressure.

“That has not been approved yet, but we are hopeful that that will be considered as at least an interim step,” Nordal said.

Another challenge that will persist in the face of rising cancer rates is the wait times for cancer scans and therapies.
In the past year, the number of people receiving cancer therapy treatments at LHSC grew by 15 percent.

“It is just a burgeoning amount of care required. It spills over into surgery, it spills over into imaging and as a result those are the areas we are having our greatest wait list challenges.”

“Those will be areas we will try to tackle in the coming year, trying to get down to the provincial average where possible,” Nordal said.

Source: The London Free Press

Related article:

Two children's heart doctors for Winnipeg Regional

Canadian girl's medication for rare disease not completely covered by health care system

Renee Stocks, a four-year-old Canadian girl from a suburb of Ottawa, was diagnosed with the medical disorder 'Glutaric Acidemia type II', also called GA II, only two-and-a-half years after the first clinical signs of her illness appeared.

The very rare disease prevents the human body from producing enzymes needed to breaking down dietary fats and proteins into forms than can easily be handled by the body.
Without these enzymes, fats and proteins build up and will cause damage to the brain, liver, lungs and kidneys.

Had Renee been tested at birth, she could have been put on a strict diet that would have reduced her chances of serious health problems later in life, according to Frank Frerman, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

Her parents had no idea anything was wrong with her until she became seriously ill at 9 1/2 months.
She was rushed to the hospital by ambulance after vomiting and a high fever that left her slumped over in her baby seat and then spent 72 days in intensive care on life support.

“We were passed from medical service to medical service, trying to find out what was wrong with her,” Renee's mother, Ms. Stocks said.

On Renee's third birthday, following a series of tests, including organ and muscle biopsies, the family got the bad news when a hospital in Colorado confirmed that Renee had GA II.

Renee's language development was behind her peers but she has since caught up with the help of speech therapy. However, she is taught at home instead of attending junior kindergarten classes at school, because the risk of coming in contact with a sick child is too high.

The Stocks have had to refinance the family home to help pay for Renee's special diet and put other plans on hold, including a summer vacation and finishing the basement.
The high carbohydrate diet prepared by the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto includes fake chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese.

To restrict the amount of amino acids, which Renee cannot break down, the diet adds components of protein individually.
Ms. Stocks said the federal government recently agreed to pick up the tab for the diet.

But her big worry is how the family will pay for the experimental drug Renee started taking on December 1st.
The drug, known as L-3-Hydroxybutyrate, was developed by a Belgian doctor, Johan Van Hove, who now works at the Colorado lab, and costs $200 a day.

It is known as an orphan drug because the cost is not covered by private insurance plans or the Ontario government.
It is also well beyond the reach of what her husband, Andrew, earns as a paramedic.
Local residents recently held a fund raiser for the family, raising $14,200, enough for a two-month supply of the drug.

“I'm not bitter at the government for not funding this because I understand that there has to be checks and balances in place,” Ms. Stocks said. “But it is our only hope.”

Source: Globe and Mail

Editor's opinion:

"So, why exactly is this not covered by our system, why is she not urgent?
Why does someone that smokes (by choice) and gets lung cancer, receive proper and medical help covered by the system and the parents of this innocent little girl, without ever getting a choice of being healthy, have to carry the heavy financial load for treatment of their daughter??
ANGER and DISBELIEF, are the first words that come to mind.........."

Goverment criticized about care refugee claimant Singh

Volunteers are caring for quadriplegic refugee claimant Laibar Singh 24 hours a day, but it is unclear how many of them have formal medical training, despite his supporters' assertions that he needs access to Canada's top-notch medical care.

Harjap Grewal, a spokesman for Mr. Singh and refugee advocate with No One is Illegal, said in an interview that hundreds have volunteered to care for Mr. Singh since an aneurysm left him paralyzed, but he did not provide specific numbers of formally trained people who have been tending to him.

He said that a maximum of 10 people with training as nurses or doctors have volunteered to care for Mr. Singh, but that most volunteers are not health-care professionals. They have been helping him with needs such as hygiene and going to the bathroom that he cannot handle himself.

Mr. Grewal added that Mr. Singh would not receive the treatment he needs in India because neither he nor his children can afford to pay for it.

"A lot of people have the means to make sure that he gets that care here," he said.

Harsha Walia, also with No One is Illegal, said that money for Mr. Singh's care has come through community donations. For example, Maninder Gill, owner of Radio India, has donated $5,000 toward his care.

When asked why such donations could not be used to pay for private health care in India, Mr. Singh's home country, Ms. Walia said his case is a "simple issue of justice and humanity."

"If that argument were to be made that everyone here that's in need of care just raised money and went somewhere else, it defies a basic value of human dignity," she said. "His wish is that he feels safe here. He chooses to be with his community here."

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"His condition just deteriorates rapidly every time he's put through this game that the government's playing...................................."

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