Syringe reuse spurs infection fears
Patients in northern Alberta at risk
Jodie Sinnema and Sarah McGinnis, with files from Gwendolyn Richards, Calgary Herald
Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Health officials in northern Alberta are contacting hundreds of patients about the possibility of infection after an investigation found that syringes had been reused to administer medication.
The reuse of the syringes through patients' intravenous lines at the hospital in High Prairie occurred during endoscopies from March 1, 2004, to Oct. 2, 2008. Up to 1,300 patients may have been involved.
Syringes also may have been reused during dental surgeries dating back to 1990, affecting up to 1,400 people.
Dr. Albert de Villiers, the medical officer of health for Peace Country Health, said the risk of infection was low, but wouldn't quantify that risk.
The practice of repeated use of syringes was caught when a new staff member was receiving training and a manager realized the reuse had become routine.
The syringes in question were used to inject medication into intravenous lines.
If a staff member drew back on the syringe, there was the possibility of backflow of possible contaminants from the IV bag, which could then be transferred to another patient when the syringe was used again.
Alberta Health Services is contacting patients by phone and mail to arrange for blood testing. Patients will be tested for HIV and hepatitis B and C.
"We are committed to be open, honest and transparent," de Villiers said, adding not all the 1,400 dental patients will have to be tested -- only those who received pain medication after their surgery in the recovery rooms. "We do not want to worry or test patients unnecessarily."
Based on the fact there was no actual skin contact between the needles and the patients, AIDS Calgary spokeswoman Amanda Chapman said there is an "extremely low risk of transmission."
But that doesn't mean those who received care during the time syringes were being reused should not get tested, she said.
Health Minister Ron Liepert said health officials moved quickly to halt the practice once "the concern was raised."
"As we continue to make patient safety a key focus in Alberta's health system, we may identify other practices that do not meet provincial standards, that the improper practices are identified and corrected and that lessons are learned and shared across the system," he said.
The practice of reusing syringes was only taking place at the High Prairie Health Complex, the 25-bed hospital in the town located about 360 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Fewer than five staff members were responsible for reusing the syringes.
Some health-care advocates aren't convinced that more reviews are going to permanently address what could be a systemic problem.
"People should be asking the question to the (Health) ministry, where else might we see problems with infection control?" said Friends of Medicare executive director David Eggen.
"This isn't like just getting a cold. Blood infections can be fatal."
In March 2007, Alberta's East Central Health Region sent letters to almost 3,000 patients, urging them to be tested for HIV and hepatitis because of improperly sterilized equipment at St. Joseph's Hospital in Vegreville.
The province later spent $5 million to improve practices in the East Central Health Region. The province's nine health regions have since been amalgamated into one "superboard."
Duane Mather, president and CEO of the Calgary-based oil contractor Nabors Canada, has employees who work in the High Prairie area on a regular basis. He was dismayed to hear about the reuse of syringes at the rural hospital.
He's concerned about the quality of health care his staff might receive there in an emergency and intends to instruct his personnel to ask appropriate questions if employees should ever require medical attention in High Prairie.
"We know we have troubles in our health care, but this is pretty basic stuff," Mather said.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Jack Davis's retirement will cost you nearly $6 million.
That has critics up in arms.
The Calgary Health Region CEO will get about $1.7 million in severance.
That will be paid on top of Davis' $4 million retirement and pension plan, for a total of $5.7 million.
This as the province's health regions are dismantled, and turned into one giant superboard.
Critics are obviously not happy about the payout, saying this is a waste of taxpayers dollars.
Dave Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare tells the Herald there's no justification for it and not only is this stripping taxpayers of our own cash but it's a waste of scarce public health care dollars.
Shelia Weatherill former capital health chief executive in Edmonton walks away with the second-largest payout, about $1.5 million, that's on top of another $2 million.
Health minister Ron Liepert is blaming the now-disbanded boards that signed their contracts.
The CEO's were cut loose last spring when the province announced it's replacing the regional health board's with one supper board for all of Alberta.
There could be more to come with two other severance packages still under negotiation.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Michelle Lang
Calgary Herald
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Surgical wait times in Alberta and across the country decreased by about one week from 2007 levels, the first notable decline during the past 15 years, according to a new Fraser Institute study.
The report, released Tuesday, found the median wait times for treatment dropped in Alberta from 19.5 weeks last year to 18.5 weeks this year.
Nationally, the think-tank found the wait time for Canadian patients seeking surgery dipped from 18.3 weeks in 2007 to 17.3 weeks this year.
"We have to be careful when we applaud (this decrease)," said Nadeem Esmail, a Fraser Institute analyst who wrote the report. "Wait times are still incredibly long in the province of Alberta and in the country."
The report ranked Alberta fourth out of the 10 provinces for its medical wait times. Ontario recorded the shortest total wait time at 13.3 weeks, while Saskatchewan had the longest delays at 28.8 weeks.
Esmail, who measured procedures in 12 specialties of medicine, said the results are surprising because most of the reduction in wait times was related to quicker referrals between family doctors and specialists.
He argued most provinces have spent money and time working to cut the wait between seeing a specialist and undergoing surgery -- areas that didn't see much progress in the study.
The report concludes Canada needs to look at a European model of health care in order to make a bigger dent in its surgical delays. The Fraser Institute argues countries like Switzerland have no waiting lists because of parallel private medical care that forces their public health systems to become more competitive.
But public health care advocates said there is still plenty of room in Canada's health system to speed up surgeries.
Friends of Medicare said Alberta has moved to slash wait times in the public system with initiatives like the hip and knee project, which streamlined patient care and reduced delays.
"We have the capacity to reduce wait times in the public system," said Dave Eggen, executive director of the group.
mlang@theherald.canwest.com
Calgary Herald
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Surgical wait times in Alberta and across the country decreased by about one week from 2007 levels, the first notable decline during the past 15 years, according to a new Fraser Institute study.
The report, released Tuesday, found the median wait times for treatment dropped in Alberta from 19.5 weeks last year to 18.5 weeks this year.
Nationally, the think-tank found the wait time for Canadian patients seeking surgery dipped from 18.3 weeks in 2007 to 17.3 weeks this year.
"We have to be careful when we applaud (this decrease)," said Nadeem Esmail, a Fraser Institute analyst who wrote the report. "Wait times are still incredibly long in the province of Alberta and in the country."
The report ranked Alberta fourth out of the 10 provinces for its medical wait times. Ontario recorded the shortest total wait time at 13.3 weeks, while Saskatchewan had the longest delays at 28.8 weeks.
Esmail, who measured procedures in 12 specialties of medicine, said the results are surprising because most of the reduction in wait times was related to quicker referrals between family doctors and specialists.
He argued most provinces have spent money and time working to cut the wait between seeing a specialist and undergoing surgery -- areas that didn't see much progress in the study.
The report concludes Canada needs to look at a European model of health care in order to make a bigger dent in its surgical delays. The Fraser Institute argues countries like Switzerland have no waiting lists because of parallel private medical care that forces their public health systems to become more competitive.
But public health care advocates said there is still plenty of room in Canada's health system to speed up surgeries.
Friends of Medicare said Alberta has moved to slash wait times in the public system with initiatives like the hip and knee project, which streamlined patient care and reduced delays.
"We have the capacity to reduce wait times in the public system," said Dave Eggen, executive director of the group.
mlang@theherald.canwest.com
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
5,000 Doctors Challenge Private-Insurance System
Over 5,000 U.S. physicians have signed an open letter calling on the candidates for president and Congress "to stand up for the health of the American people and implement a nonprofit, single-payer national health insurance system."Noting that the nation's private-insurance-based model is failing by denying needed medical care to millions, wasting resources and driving up costs, the doctors say that a publicly financed system is "the sole hope for affordable, comprehensive coverage."
"A single-payer health system could realize administrative savings of more than $300 billion annually -- enough to cover the uninsured and to eliminate co-payments and deductibles for all Americans," they write, adding that it would also slow cost increases.Dr. Oliver Fein, a professor of clinical medicine and public health at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and a signer of the letter, said today, "With the sudden economic downturn, more people than ever before are worried about how to pay for health care.
A single-payer system -- an improved Medicare for all -- would lift those worries, provide care to all who need it and require no new money. It's the only morally and fiscally responsible approach to take."In their letter, the physicians express disappointment that most U.S. political leaders still cling to the private health insurance industry model of financing care and "seem intent on reprising failed schemes from the past" like mandates or tax incentives."The incremental changes suggested by most Democrats cannot solve our problems; further pursuit of market-based strategies, as advocated by Republicans, will exacerbate them," they say.
"What needs to be changed is the system itself."The letter is being circulated by Physicians for a National Health Program, a single-payer advocacy group. Fein is the group's president-elect. Excerpts from the appeal are being published in full-page advertisements in the Oct. 13 editions of The New Yorker and The Nation magazines, which arrive on newsstands this week.
Signers of the letter include some of the most prominent figures in U.S. medicine, including leaders of professional societies in internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, psychiatry and public health. Among them are Marcia Angell, M.D., senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and past editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, and Bernard Lown, M.D., professor of cardiology emeritus at Harvard and Nobel laureate.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a co-author of the letter, said, "Physicians have a responsibility to get to the root of a patient's medical complaint, to make a diagnosis based on evidence. Only then can we confidently prescribe a cure, rather than offer a consoling placebo."Given the repeated failure of incremental reforms like the one under way in Massachusetts, which is already facing cost overruns and leaving many residents uncovered, and given the increasingly obvious failure of unfettered markets, it's clear that neither of these traditional prescriptions for reform will work," she said. "What's needed instead is the only treatment that has proven its effectiveness -- a single-payer plan." (Woolhandler co-wrote a piece published late last year in the New York Times that scrutinized "mandate" proposals like those currently backed by Obama: <http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/december/i_am_not_a_health_re.php>.)The letter's release follows a survey in the Annals of Internal Medicine this spring that shows 59 percent of U.S. physicians support national health insurance, a jump of 10 percentage points from five years agoSingle-payer plans typically involve a single, publicly administered social insurance fund that guarantees health care coverage for everyone, much like Medicare presently does for seniors. Patients go the doctors and hospitals of their choice; health care providers largely remain private. Private health insurers are eliminated or their role is substantially reduced.A bill in Congress, the U.S. National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676, embodies the single-payer model. Sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), it currently has over 90 co-sponsors, more than any other health reform proposal.The full text and initiating signers of the "Open Letter to the Candidates on Single Payer Health Reform" are available at <http://www.pnhp.org/letter>. The complete list of signers is available at <http://www.pnhp.org/letter/signers>. A PDF of the full-page, four-color ad can be found at <http://www.pnhp.org/ad>.
Over 5,000 U.S. physicians have signed an open letter calling on the candidates for president and Congress "to stand up for the health of the American people and implement a nonprofit, single-payer national health insurance system."Noting that the nation's private-insurance-based model is failing by denying needed medical care to millions, wasting resources and driving up costs, the doctors say that a publicly financed system is "the sole hope for affordable, comprehensive coverage."
"A single-payer health system could realize administrative savings of more than $300 billion annually -- enough to cover the uninsured and to eliminate co-payments and deductibles for all Americans," they write, adding that it would also slow cost increases.Dr. Oliver Fein, a professor of clinical medicine and public health at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and a signer of the letter, said today, "With the sudden economic downturn, more people than ever before are worried about how to pay for health care.
A single-payer system -- an improved Medicare for all -- would lift those worries, provide care to all who need it and require no new money. It's the only morally and fiscally responsible approach to take."In their letter, the physicians express disappointment that most U.S. political leaders still cling to the private health insurance industry model of financing care and "seem intent on reprising failed schemes from the past" like mandates or tax incentives."The incremental changes suggested by most Democrats cannot solve our problems; further pursuit of market-based strategies, as advocated by Republicans, will exacerbate them," they say.
"What needs to be changed is the system itself."The letter is being circulated by Physicians for a National Health Program, a single-payer advocacy group. Fein is the group's president-elect. Excerpts from the appeal are being published in full-page advertisements in the Oct. 13 editions of The New Yorker and The Nation magazines, which arrive on newsstands this week.
Signers of the letter include some of the most prominent figures in U.S. medicine, including leaders of professional societies in internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, psychiatry and public health. Among them are Marcia Angell, M.D., senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and past editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, and Bernard Lown, M.D., professor of cardiology emeritus at Harvard and Nobel laureate.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a co-author of the letter, said, "Physicians have a responsibility to get to the root of a patient's medical complaint, to make a diagnosis based on evidence. Only then can we confidently prescribe a cure, rather than offer a consoling placebo."Given the repeated failure of incremental reforms like the one under way in Massachusetts, which is already facing cost overruns and leaving many residents uncovered, and given the increasingly obvious failure of unfettered markets, it's clear that neither of these traditional prescriptions for reform will work," she said. "What's needed instead is the only treatment that has proven its effectiveness -- a single-payer plan." (Woolhandler co-wrote a piece published late last year in the New York Times that scrutinized "mandate" proposals like those currently backed by Obama: <http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/december/i_am_not_a_health_re.php>.)The letter's release follows a survey in the Annals of Internal Medicine this spring that shows 59 percent of U.S. physicians support national health insurance, a jump of 10 percentage points from five years agoSingle-payer plans typically involve a single, publicly administered social insurance fund that guarantees health care coverage for everyone, much like Medicare presently does for seniors. Patients go the doctors and hospitals of their choice; health care providers largely remain private. Private health insurers are eliminated or their role is substantially reduced.A bill in Congress, the U.S. National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676, embodies the single-payer model. Sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), it currently has over 90 co-sponsors, more than any other health reform proposal.The full text and initiating signers of the "Open Letter to the Candidates on Single Payer Health Reform" are available at <http://www.pnhp.org/letter>. The complete list of signers is available at <http://www.pnhp.org/letter/signers>. A PDF of the full-page, four-color ad can be found at <http://www.pnhp.org/ad>.
Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the Calgary Chapter of the Friends of Medicare, let me welcome you to the Calgary General Hospital Memorial gathering on this, the 10th anniversary of the blowing up of this important local landmark. We thank you for coming and joining us for this Calgary General Hospital Memorial….Ten Years Later. We appreciate the presence of Mr. John Schmal, former Alderman for the city of Calgary, and the last deputy chair of the Calgary General Hospital or as it was known from 1988 to its end, the Bow Valley Centre of the Calgary General. Mrs. Mairi Matheson, the last chair of the board, could not be here today and sends her sincere regrets. Mairi’s thought are conveyed in the following words: As you know I fought along with all the courageous souls that wanted to “Keep the General” and I shall always be grateful to those who then and now fight for quality of health care for our citizens.” Martin Luther King once said: OUR LIVES BEGIN TO END THE DAY WE BECOME SILENT ABOUT THE THINGS THAT MATTER. So we are here to remember the General Hospital and to acknowledge and convey our deep appreciation and gratitude to the administrators, doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals, along with the large and invaluable team who saw to it that the maintenance and condition of the buildings were conducive to the well being of its patients. And echoing Mairi’s words, I would be remiss if I did not mention the dedicated and determined group of people who came together bound by a common purpose to resist government plans to terminate the Calgary General Hospital. We extend our warm welcome to you.The General opened its doors on November of 1890 with 8 beds in a two-story frame house. 20 years later (1910) a new Calgary General opened here on the banks of the Bow River in what was to be its permanent site. In the 1950s a new core building, nurses residence and school of nursing opened. By 1977 the capacity reached 960 beds with the opening of the Centennial Wing, including Canada’s first forensic psychiatric unit in any general hospital. Just 10 years later, the first trauma service heli pad opened allowing for quick air delivery of emergency patients. There are many other examples of how the General served the community: from treating patients during the Spanish flu epidemic following World War 1 to assisting the ill in the lean years of the great depression. During those difficult years, The General offered free medications for patients who were unemployed. To help pay for the medications, staff took salary cuts.Commencing in early 1990s, the Klein government began slash and burn funding to hospitals, ignoring among other things city population growth, in migration, and the aging population. On October 4th, 1998, a spectacle was made of the destruction of the General. You can google it and witness the 25-second version of the implosion or the 6-minute version. As you may know, the destruction was not contained to one just hospital building. On that day ten years ago, 11 buildings were leveled, 8 of which were younger than the Foothills Hospital. This callous act set of a chain of events that are evident today in the catastrophic shortages of hospital beds, a lack of emergency room space, and a dire shortage of psychiatric spaces.This event also marked the end of a community…. for The General was not just a building or a number of buildings. It was much more than that. It was a community of buildings run by a community of people all in the service of welcoming the births of babies, nursing the ill to health, caring for the frail and elderly, and comforting the dying. In addition, Calgarians also witnessed the leveling of the much-valued psychiatric wing, which was recognized by the World Health Organization as WORLD CLASS! While many patients recovered and were discharged to return to their homes and others redirected to the remaining hospitals throughout this city, a cruel fate descended upon those facing a variety of mental challenges, and many wound up living on the streets of Calgary in difficult and often perilous circumstances known only to them. Those less fortunate are no longer among us. During the irrational cost cutting of the 90’s, closures of hospitals occurred in many communities across Canada but the demise of the General was significantly different from those of other hospitals. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia there were two marked differences between the General and other hospitals in North America that were terminated. First, the General was the largest hospital in North America to be shut down and have its equipment, staff, and patients integrated into the remaining hospitals. Secondly, it left Calgary as the only large city in Canada without an emergency department in the downtown core. So today we honour the community of the Calgary General Hospital and we remember and reflect on how things would be different if the General still graced our city skyline. In our third decade of advocacy of public health care, Friends of Medicare is determined and committed to its mandate of promoting innovation in the public sector including preventative measures that will increase the overall wellness level of all Albertans. In closing let me pledge that Friends of Medicare will continue to press this government to uphold the 5 principles of the Canada Health Act and to close the loopholes that allow private for profit businesses to undermine our public healthcare system so that travesties like the destruction of the Calgary General will not be repeated.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Hospital demolition mourned on anniversary
Calgary General was flattened 10 years ago
Gwendolyn Richards
Calgary Herald
Sunday, October 05, 2008
CREDIT: Lorraine Hjalte, Calgary Herald
About 20 people gathered Saturday to mourn the loss of the General Hospital and voice their anger at the long-term effects of the decision to demolish it.
The provincial government's decision to close -- and ultimately implode Calgary's General Hospital -- remains a divisive issue even 10 years to the day after the building was reduced to rubble.
In front of the memorial wall commemorating the hospital that served the city from 1910 to 1998, about 20 people gathered Saturday to mourn the loss and voice their anger at the impact the decision has had.
"This is the '9/11' of health care," Calgarian Rebecca Aizenman said. "We haven't recovered from it. The meltdown is still felt today."
But proponents of the closure maintain it was a necessary move. The decision came amidst the Klein government's efforts to stem soaring health care costs in the 1990s.
Ex-premier Ralph Klein's former chief of staff Rod Love said the facility was "old, dysfunctional and badly organized" and had to be closed if health care was going to be modernized.
"We had a financial crunch in the mid-90s and we had to reorganize the health care system," he said Saturday. "Bad, old facilities had to go."
Closing Calgary General and Holy Cross hospitals was expected to save up to $50 million in operating costs per year. At the same time the decision was made to close the General, the province promised a hospital in the southeast.
But the decision left Calgary without an emergency department downtown and destroyed a "state of the art" facility that would today be very much in demand, critics charge.
The hospital had more than 900 beds, along with a trauma centre, helipad and a psychiatric unit, Friends of Medicare members said Saturday.
Former alderman John Schmal, who was the last vice-chair on the General Hospital's board, criticized city council and others for not fighting hard enough to keep the hospital.
"We all know what happened here was the very worst blunder ever made by a health care board," he told those gathered Saturday.
The bed closures has contributed to today's overcrowding and long wait times, added Aizenman.
"We lost a great deal. Nurses left, doctors left," she added.
Amongst the group were former nurses and those whose families had marked milestones at the hospital.
Ted Woynillowicz of Friends of Medicare said the ceremony was not just to remember the hospital, but also to honour all those who worked there over the decades.
"It was a community of buildings run by a community of people all in the service of welcoming the births of babies, nursing the ill to health, caring for the frail and elderly and comforting the dying," Woynillowicz said.
On Oct. 4, 1998, crowds gathered to watch the implosion of the Calgary General Hospital. Some cheered as the hospital fell, but for others it was the sad end of an era.
grichards@theherald.canwest.com
Calgary General was flattened 10 years ago
Gwendolyn Richards
Calgary Herald
Sunday, October 05, 2008
CREDIT: Lorraine Hjalte, Calgary Herald
About 20 people gathered Saturday to mourn the loss of the General Hospital and voice their anger at the long-term effects of the decision to demolish it.
The provincial government's decision to close -- and ultimately implode Calgary's General Hospital -- remains a divisive issue even 10 years to the day after the building was reduced to rubble.
In front of the memorial wall commemorating the hospital that served the city from 1910 to 1998, about 20 people gathered Saturday to mourn the loss and voice their anger at the impact the decision has had.
"This is the '9/11' of health care," Calgarian Rebecca Aizenman said. "We haven't recovered from it. The meltdown is still felt today."
But proponents of the closure maintain it was a necessary move. The decision came amidst the Klein government's efforts to stem soaring health care costs in the 1990s.
Ex-premier Ralph Klein's former chief of staff Rod Love said the facility was "old, dysfunctional and badly organized" and had to be closed if health care was going to be modernized.
"We had a financial crunch in the mid-90s and we had to reorganize the health care system," he said Saturday. "Bad, old facilities had to go."
Closing Calgary General and Holy Cross hospitals was expected to save up to $50 million in operating costs per year. At the same time the decision was made to close the General, the province promised a hospital in the southeast.
But the decision left Calgary without an emergency department downtown and destroyed a "state of the art" facility that would today be very much in demand, critics charge.
The hospital had more than 900 beds, along with a trauma centre, helipad and a psychiatric unit, Friends of Medicare members said Saturday.
Former alderman John Schmal, who was the last vice-chair on the General Hospital's board, criticized city council and others for not fighting hard enough to keep the hospital.
"We all know what happened here was the very worst blunder ever made by a health care board," he told those gathered Saturday.
The bed closures has contributed to today's overcrowding and long wait times, added Aizenman.
"We lost a great deal. Nurses left, doctors left," she added.
Amongst the group were former nurses and those whose families had marked milestones at the hospital.
Ted Woynillowicz of Friends of Medicare said the ceremony was not just to remember the hospital, but also to honour all those who worked there over the decades.
"It was a community of buildings run by a community of people all in the service of welcoming the births of babies, nursing the ill to health, caring for the frail and elderly and comforting the dying," Woynillowicz said.
On Oct. 4, 1998, crowds gathered to watch the implosion of the Calgary General Hospital. Some cheered as the hospital fell, but for others it was the sad end of an era.
grichards@theherald.canwest.com
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