The Orange Tent
As I back my minivan out of the garage, I roll down the window. My husband, post-call after a night of anaesthetizing patients for emergency surgeries, is blowing leaves around in the yard with [...]
Healthcare
Healthcare
Doctors Depart
Alberta physicians are closing family clinics, withdrawing from hospital services and even leaving the province. Since the start of 2020, according to the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), [...]
The Pandemic and Public Health
Even before the new Coronavirus had a name, one thing was certain: A human being wasn’t entirely in control of whether they would get it. In those first months, geography mattered most of all. On [...]
Should We Allow More Private Healthcare?
Ronald Kustra the executive director of the Association of Canadians for Sustainable Medicare says yes Several years ago I chatted with two passengers seated next to me in the airplane. From [...]
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.” [...]
Should Vaccinations Be Mandatory?
DR. UBAKA OGBOGU SAYS YES. In March 2016 over 100 people were exposed to measles—a serious, vaccine-preventable disease—at Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton. The source of the [...]
Reducing the Harm
It’s a little after 10 o’clock in the morning and Taylor feels like she’s climbing the walls. When her name is called and the door to Lethbridge’s supervised drug consumption site buzzes [...]
Meet the Minister: Sarah Hoffman
AV: What does our healthcare system do very well? Triage. My mom remarried a few years ago, and the gentleman she married has a heart condition and has ended up in emergency more than once. They [...]
By AV Staff
Optical Illusion
My 94-year-old mother and I are sitting in a southwest Calgary medical office and settling in to spend the day. It will be a long one but by the time we leave, my mother will have a new right eye [...]
When Things Fall Apart
Life is filled with surprises. So, on the day that I drove my brother, Olivier, to emergency to be treated for a psychotic episode, during that evening when we sat in emergency for nearly 12 [...]
By Clem Martini
MOST READ
MOST READ
The Lesson of Lougheed
For 100 years, between 1905 and 2005, Albertans changed their government only three times (1921, 1935, 1971). The last of these elections, the most portentous, happened 50 years ago this August. Alberta has now changed government twice in the past six years. The next election may see yet another new government—meaning ...
The Assault on Higher Education
The Kenney government proclaimed in fall 2019 that Alberta’s post-secondary institutions were “overly dependent” on government funding—which is an odd thing to say about a public good. Then it declared that the province’s grant to the schools should be reduced by 20 per cent by 2023. The rationale for this ...
Rediscovering a River
The Cree called it Kisiskâciwanisîpiy—the swiftly flowing river. For the Blackfoot, it was omaka-ty—the big river. It starts in the Columbia Icefield, at the toe of the Saskatchewan Glacier, and cuts the province in half as it flows through Banff and Jasper national parks, northeast to Edmonton, then east-by-southeast across the ...