So there’s this thing in Quebec which I’m sure my Canadian readers have heard of and maybe also a few of my American readers, which involves the Quebec government devising some legislation called the Charter of Quebec Values. I have to say “charters” and “values” are nice happy positive words,
Continue readingTag: Health Care Policy That Matters to Nursing
Those Emergency Blues: Protect Your Love
Via Osocio, a very likeable ad for HIV prevention and awareness from the Toronto-based Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention. Osocio notes the ad is less about sex than and more about love, and in this way, I think, it manages to get its message across effectively, without being preachy or
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Having the Talk about Birth Control
One of a series of YouTube videos from Bedsider, a program of the U.S. National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, on having the birth control discussion with a physician. [More videos can be found here.] From Bedsiders webpage: Babies are great…when you’re ready for them. We think in the meantime women
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Nurses Practice Beyond Their Scope — And It’s Not a Bad Thing
A very good, if obvious, idea on the use of RNs: nurses should be used to the full extent of their abilities. From the Toronto Star (and kudos to the paper for their Nursing Week insert in Saturday’s edition): “The bottom line is that we’re wasting valuable resources with our
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Nasty, Medically Unnecessary, Coercive Procedure
This is just grostesque: A Republican supermajority has muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the Virginia House, despite bitter yet futile objections from Democrats, with one GOP delegate deriding most of the procedures as “matters of lifestyle convenience.” You want to put what where? [SNIP]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Long Emergency Department Admissions Shorten Lives
Via ImpactedNurse.com, another study showing prolonged emergency department stays are less than optimal: There were 41,256 admissions from the ED. Mortality generally increased with increasing boarding time, from 2.5% in patients boarded less than 2 hours to 4.5% in patients boarding 12 hours or more (p < 0.001). Mean hospital
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Got Mine. Got Yours?
The flu shot, that is. I got mine yesterday. And no, I did not get any flu-like symptoms. So get it over it, and go get the shot. Now. Especially if you’re a health care professional. What I wrote during the glory days of H1N1 two years ago still applies:
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Smokers Have Other Problems Besides, Well, Smoking
If you work in the North, you’re familiar with the scene: patients in gowns, riding wheelchairs and trailing IV pumps scrambling over snow banks and icy walkways and braving frostbite-inducing winds to get off hospital property to have a smoke. I suppose for most of my readers, the image will induce a great big “Meh.” […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: “We Will Now All Be Unwilling Participants in a Social Experiment That Will Undoubtedly Place Canadian Lives at Risk”
My thoughts exactly, from Alan Drummond of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians. His full statement on the proposed repeal of the Gun Registry. It is regrettable that we, as a nation, are about to embark on an unwelcome social experiment. The Conservative government has been very clear that they intend to finally abolish the […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: On the Gun Registry
Globe and Mail headline: “End of long-gun registry seen as victory in war on Big Government.” The headline could have just as easily read, “Government wants to kill Canadians to make Lanark County gun owners happy.” Filed under: Before I Start Throwing Things, I'd Better Write This Down, Health Care Policy That Matters to Nursing, […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Three Strikes and You’re Out, and By Out, I Mean Dead
This story was plastered above the fold in yesterday’s print edition of the Toronto Star: Gleb Alfyorov thought he was going to a hospital for help. So did the judge who ordered a 30-day psychiatric evaluation of the Pickering teen. “I want you to be with a team of specialists — nurses and doctors who […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Flash Mob Bares Breasts, Somewhere Prudes are Moaning
For a good cause, of course: A bold group of mothers gave a new meaning to the term ‘flashmob’ when they bared their breasts at a major shopping centre today to raise awareness of breastfeeding. More than a hundred mothers of all ages – some accompanied by their partners – descended on the Trafford Centre […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Saving the World from Terrorist Breastfeeding Toddlers [UPDATED]
An Atlanta, Georgia suburb is fighting one of the most pressing causes of our era — children who breastfeed past twenty-four months. Because breastfeeding after the age of two will damage human society beyond repair: On Monday night, Forest Park passed a public indecency ordinance to prevent public nudity. Previously, the city only had a […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: How to Eat in the Most Obese County in the United States
Let’s start with an appetizer: One thing you need to know before going to the Mississippi Delta is what a Kool-Aid pickle is — and how to make it. 1. Pour pickle juice from a jar of pickles into a bowl. 2. Add Kool-Aid to pickle juice. 3. Pour pickle juice back over pickles. 4. […]
Continue reading