Publicly funding comprehensive treatment for depression is cost-effective Could we be doing more to prevent suicide in Canada? The answer is an unmitigated, yes. Access to timely and appropriate interventions for depression, including drug therapy and psychotherapy,can significantly improve health outcomes and reduce the number of deaths by suicide. Yet these needs are not […]
Tens of thousands of people marched in Spain in April, protesting for three days over a court’s failure to convict five men of the gang rape of an 18-year-old woman during the Pamplona bull-running festival in 2016. The men had offered to walk the teenager to her car, but instead they took her to the […]
Postpartum OCD is frequently misdiagnosed and misunderstood – but it is treatable In January, a new mother in California became part of a viral Facebook post that described her baby’s four-month postpartum checkup. As a result of the thoughts she shared with her health care providers, the police were called and she was escorted […]
Alberta behind on leveraging art in healthcare The long-promised new Calgary Cancer Centre is finally breaking ground at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary. The $1.4 billion state-of-the-art facility will have 12 radiation vaults, 160 in-patient beds, more than 100 patient exam rooms and more than 100 chemotherapy chairs. But will patients still feel like they […]
Three years ago, comic icon Robin Williams was found dead. His death was subsequently confirmed by California police as a suicide. The coverage was overwhelming: articles, blog posts, live coverage, television segments and an outpouring of emotion over social media. There have been similar public responses even more recently with the deaths of Chris Cornell, frontman for […]
Political scientist Shannon Sampert says not enough is being done to help the group of Canadians who are most likely to die by suicide — men, especially those who are middle-aged.
Originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press on April 27, 2017 When there is talk about suicide, most people envision a young person struggling with mental health. While that may be the No. 1 cause of death for people under the age of 20, those most likely to die by suicide are middle-aged men. This […]
Almost half of those with developmental disabilities are diagnosed with mental illness or addiction — and they are among the most frequent visitors to emergency departments A version of this commentary appeared in Policy Options, the Vancouver Province and the Winnipeg Free Press With the recent federal commitment to increase mental health funding across Canada, we […]
A call to the emergency room announced that the ambulance was on its way. Joey, a middle-aged oilfield worker, was experiencing a suspected toxic ingestion of the opioid, fentanyl.
Recently a distraught young mother from British Columbia took her own life while in the grip of postpartum depression, leaving behind a grieving husband and infant son. She was a Registered Nurse and had been seeking treatment for depression and anxiety. Tragically, the health care system she worked for was unable to help her.
