Cash-for-syringe plan, not the best

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Angela Hill

This is something I meant to write about ages ago – but have only now had the chance.

The mayor of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the small town in Northern Saskatchewan where I got my start as a daily newspaper reporter, proposed a-cash-for-discarded-needles/syringes plan.

I can appreciate what he was trying to do, which is deal with constant pressure from the public to make sure no used needles show up on city streets and when they do have a good program in place to remove them.

Some context, if a needle is spotted by an adult in Prince Albert the person has to choices. One is to pick it up and safely dispose it in a plastic container, like a water bottle or coffee can or something, the other is to call the fire department.

In the past health officials did a great job of telling the public that used needles could be dangerous, this means that a lot of people opt to call the fire department.

My guess is that the mayor was looking for a way to get the fire department out of picking up needles.

Here’s the thing though – if you put a price on returned syringes, why would any one of the people that make up the current 89 per cent return rate, bring back a needle?

Wouldn’t people want to cash in on their commodity? And many of those people who are looking to cash in are likely the ones with injection drug issues to begin with, so the play would have them receiving money, which in a lot of cases would then go to pay for their addiction.

It’s my understanding, at least at the time I learned about this, that the health region had not met with the mayor to figure out if this plan would work. I’m hoping when they do, they can come up with a better plan.

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Contact tracing and TB in northern mines

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Angela Hill

One case of TB at a mine in Northern Saskatchewan has led to contact tracing going on across the country (and a couple of international cases). I find this incredibly interesting on two points.

  1. Who is affected – and if we might see more of this in the future
  2. How it is spread and if we should be concerned about potentially fatal diseases with air travel.

According to one of the medical health officers at the Saskatoon Health Region (and a fact that those of us interested in public health have known for a long time),

“TB and active TB is really a disease of poverty so there are a lot of conditions in the north, poor socioeconomic conditions, poor housing quality, people living in overcrowded conditions, people that are living in an isolated community and they don’t have as much access to health care services as we do in the south. “

She says it’s harder to control TB in Northern Saskatchewan that it is in the south.

Now increasingly mines in Northern Saskatchewan are leading campaigns to hire more workers from northern communities – First Nations especially. This is a great idea, it brings employment – there are many jobs to be filled and many people already living near the mines that are able to fill them. It saves the mining companies from flying people in from all over the country.

However, with TB also having a larger hold on northern populations it likely means more and more mine workers could be exposed to it. I think mining companies should work with public health agencies to engage their employees, explain what TB is, what symptoms look like, and provide regular access to screening.

Catching and treating one case, is not only better for that person, it is more cost effective as a whole. Also, with regular education and testing, TB becomes normal and not something to feel embarrassed about. No one wants to be the person who leads to contact tracing that goes nationwide.

Now, on my second point about if we should be concerned with how long some cases took to track down. This is a fascinating example of how diseases can travel in this day and age. Some health regions in other provinces were still only learning about the people that had contact with the person with TB a week or so ago. Fortunately, tuberculosis isn’t that contagious (in the scheme of things) – you need to breathing in the same air with someone for a number of hours.

It makes me wonder though, what if it was something that is REALLY contagious. Someone isn’t feeling well, they continue to work through it. They fly out. All the people they are working with at some point or another fly out. Those people land, say in Saskatoon, before they move on to regions across the country and internationally. Those flights have people who are then going to other destinations. It shows how the more we develop routes of travel, how lucky we continue to be.

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MSF leaves Somalia – but not without a fight

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Angela Hill

Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders as they are called by many, go into places where no one else will go, they were born out of an exhaustion of complacency and work to bring health care to people who have no other option.

With that as the background, you can imagine how bad a situation has to be for the organization to leave somewhere.

Today MSF announced the closure of all its programs in Somalia, where it has been set up since 1991. This comes after extreme attacks on staff “an environment where armed groups and civilian leaders increasingly support, tolerate, or condone the killing, assaulting, and abducting of humanitarian aid workers.”

The most recent incidents include the brutal killing of two MSF staff in Mogadishu in December 2011 and the subsequent early release of the conviceted killer; and the violent abduction of two staff in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya that only ended last month after a 21-month captivity in south, central Somalia. These two incidents are just the latest in a series of extreme abuses. Fourteen other MSF staff members have been killed, and the organization has experienced dozens of attacks on its staff, ambulances, and medical facilities.

In some cases, the same actors—particularly but not exclusively in south central Somalia—with whom MSF must negotiate minimum guarantees to respect its medical humanitarian mission, have played a role in the abuses against MSF staff, either through direct involvement or tacit approval. Their actions and tolerance of this environment effectively cuts off hundreds of thousands of Somali civilians from humanitarian aid.

The only good part to it all is that MSF isn’t just going to leave. They are going to make a big fuss about going. Dr. Unni Karunakara, MSF’s international president is calling out the government, armed groups and other leadership in Somalia for what a lack of medical services will do to the citizens.

“Ultimately, civilians in Somalia will pay the highest cost,” he said, during a media event in Kenya this morning.

MSF in Somalia by the numbers (from 2012 alone):

  • 1,500 staff
  • 624,000 medical consultations,
  • 41,100 patients admitted to hospitals,
  • 30,090 malnourished children cared for,
  • 58,620 people vaccinated,
  • 7,300 babies delivered

Learn more about MSF.

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Posted on July 29, 2013 by Angela Hill

Two MSF (Doctors without Borders) aid workers were freed after being kidnapped from a Kenya refugee camp nearly two years ago.

There isn’t much word on their condition, but they are alive and that is incredible.

The pair was working at the Dadaab refugee camp, the largest in the world, filled with refugees fleeing famine, drought and violence in Somalia.

Both women were working as logisticians when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle inside the complex, shooting and wounding their Kenya Driver in October of 2011.

It’s incredible that they are free. It’s also incredible that there hasn’t been more talk generated about their release. They have largely been forgotten about and that’s bad.

These women weren’t overseas on some unqualified attempt at doing good. They were with an established organization, with reputable mandates, over-the-top security measures and excellent results.

It’s worth talking about. They were working overseas to help the lives of more than 500,000 people who were driven from their homes, while we sit at home and feel good because we gave money to help them do it. They are incredible people and the work they do continues at that refugee camp.

Maybe it just hits home because one day, I’d like to be working alongside them.

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Anti-vaccine advocates and junk science

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Angela Hill

So the vehemently anti-vaccine advocate is going to be on the View, where the audience will be the very people the public health officials are desperately trying to get to come in and get their children vaccinated.

Do I think Jenny McCarthy should be banned from being a T.V. personality? No.

Do I think the producers of the show should never, ever let her speak about junk science and myths that could cause public health risks? Yes.

In many ways I feel for Jenny McCarthy, I can only imagine how terrible it would be to learn your child is autistic, you would be scared, confused and looking for something to blame. The reality is it’s no one’s fault.

Yes, there was an article printed several decades ago that pointed to a link between the measles, mumps rubella vaccine (MMR) and cases of autism. However, it was also found that the scientist had fabricated his results and the scientific journal printed an apology.

Yet there are people out there who regularly use this reason as why they don’t get their kids immunized.

Here’s the issue, across Canada the numbers of measles cases are on the rise. A disease I never had to deal with is making a comeback because not enough kids are vaccinated against it. There are outbreaks of whooping cough in many Northern Saskatchewan communities, again another vaccine preventable disease.

I am lucky to have never needed a smallpox vaccine, that’s because through immunizations it was eradicated – WORLD WIDE. Polio is also on its way out.

There are number of people who say they want their kids to create a natural immunity. There are a lot of things out there for kids to develop a resistance against, why not give their bodies a hand with diseases that could cause lasting damages.

I know even friends of mine that completely disagree with my stance, but I’ve had all my shots (an many more as I’ve been overseas to places with Yellow Fever risk) and if I had kids, they would get very vaccine they could.

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