What's in the news: August 12

Today's round-up of Canadian health news, from coast to coast to coast -- and beyond.

Canadian physicians, swamped with patients and desperate for relief, are resorting to holding lotteries to determine which patients are to be kicked out of their practices. "It wasn't something that I wanted to do," a regretful Ontario doctor told the National Post. [National Post] [Western Standard] [Western Standard Shotgun blog]

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" Governments are suckers for the Chicken Little fallacy, writes John Lorinc in The Globe and Mail. That is, they're endlessly worried that the aging population will force a massive rise in health expenditures. Not so, says University of British Columbia health economist Robert Evans. [The Globe and Mail] I wrote an article on the same subject, also with Robert Evans as a key source, a year and a half ago. [National Review of Medicine]

An argument rages between the Public Health Agency of Canada and some lyme disease patient advocates over the estimated prevalance of the illness in Canada; the difference between the groups' numbers are immense. [Canadian Press]

Canadian Blood Services announced today it is merging with the Canadian Council for Donation and Transplantation, and establishing a new national plan to coordinate organ and tissue donations. Three new "priority national registries" will be created. [Canadian Blood Services press release]

An Ontario arthritis lobby "cries foul" on the province's recent decision to invest heavily in diabetes, but not in arthritis. "This is another clear indicator of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care's discrimination based on disease-type," announced the group's president. The group is demanding coverage on the provincial drug formulary of five very expensive medications. [Arthritis Consumer Experts press release]

Hospital cleaning staff in Nanaimo, British Columbia, say unsafe cleaning practices have continued despite an ongoing C difficile outbreak that's killed three patients since April. [Nanaimo Daily News]

Colin Campbell, the father of a 15-year-old Coquitlam, BC, boy who died of bacterial meningitis last year, is leading a campaign to warn teens not to share their water bottles in order to prevent the spread of meningitis. [CBC News]

A team of Ontario nurses pile into an RV once a month to go take care of the province's truckers. "It's pretty near impossible to get a doctor's appointment when you're on the road," one trucker told CBC News. "Mostly you sit in the truck, sit in the restaurant, eat greasy food, harden up the arteries a little more." [CBC News]

"Art-gardening" at Bloorview Kids Rehab, in Toronto. [Canadian Press]

The Boston Globe provides a summary of the best of Massachusetts's doctors' enraged outbursts. A few examples: throwing scissors in the OR, calling a nurse a "lame-brain" and an "idiot," and dropping a 10-pound sandbag on a nurse's foot. [Boston Globe]

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