The Unheard Patient
My wake-up call came on June 22, 2013, when Victim Services volunteers dropped me off at a local emergency room after a violent assault in which I was whipped and choked, my neck cracked and my [...]
The Gap
Dentists are trusted professionals. They’re also widely disliked. Having had a good dentist for decades, I was more trusting than disliking. But when my dentist reduced his hours, and new [...]
The Dire State of Hospitals
Dense expanses of boreal forest, the kind that seem to attract wildfires, surround the town of Whitecourt like a wall of evergreen matches. Forestry is the traditional economic driver in this [...]
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Kenney’s War on Workers
My wife and I spent our last day of our summer vacations in 2019 on a picket line with healthcare workers at Edmonton’s old General Hospital. Most of the cleaners, healthcare aides and nurses at the information picket were women of colour. Like public-sector workers across the province, they were ...
The Story of Joseph Lewis
In 1799 Joseph Lewis, a Hudson's Bay Company employee, arrived in what is now Alberta. He was 27 years old but his life had already been crammed with adventure.
Born in 1772 in Manchester, New Hampshire, at 20 he’d made his way to Montreal, where he joined the North West Company ...
The Consequences of How We Pay Doctors
At approximately 9:21 p.m., on May 18, 2015, a couple driving on Edmonton’s Yellowhead Trail called 911 to report a suspected impaired driver. They said he appeared “like someone high on drugs.” At 9:33 p.m., two police officers in an unmarked vehicle pulled up behind the Nissan Maxima, which was now stopped ...