On Monday I had the pleasure of golfing in the Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia’s annual charitable golf tournament.
The event went off without a hitch and I wanted to offer my congratulations to BIANS and their volunteers for making the day a great success.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, June is Brain Injury Awareness Month in Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia Passes Law to Protect Insurance Company Profits
In 2003 Nova Scotia passed the Automobile Insurance Reform Act (AIRA) to protect the profits of the insurance industry at the expense of innocent accident victims.
“Minor Injury” Cap on Compensation
Hypothermia therapy, where patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are cooled to prevent brain swelling, has shown promise in helping adult survivors of TBI. See this article for example.
However, a study led by researchers at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children have found that the practice may be dangerous for children with brain injuries.
The study, involved 225 children at 17 centres in Canada, France and the United Kingdom. There was no difference in how the patients in each group recovered neurologically.
June is Brain Injury Awareness month in Nova Scotia!
Traumatic brain injury is the number one cause of injury and death among children in Canada.
Nova Scotia Government Passes Law to Protect Insurance Company Profits
In 2003 Nova Scotia passed the Automobile Insurance Reform Act (AIRA) to protect the profits of the insurance industry at the expense of innocent accident victims.
“Minor Injury” Cap on Compensation
Last month Bisphenol A was officially designated a dangerous substance by Health Canada. I posted about the news here.
The ruling came about as a result of concerns when the hormone was found in children’s baby bottles.
Now tests conducted for CTV News and The Globe and Mail on cans for several popular children’s foods shows similar or higher levels of bisphenol A than in baby bottles.
Baby bottles were found to leach about 6 parts per billion of BPA. The new test results showed higher concentrations of the dangerous substance in some popular children’s food containers.
Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for children in Canada.
Safe Kids Canada has released a research report this week that showed that residential streets may be more dangerous for our children that we think. According to the study, which was released this week a child hit by a car travelling at 50 km/h has an 80 per cent chance of being killed!
Thousands of Children Injured or Killed in Pedestrian Accidents:
A number of Canadian hospitals are reusing “single-use” medical devices (SUDs) that are supposed to be disposed of after being used. Worse yet, the vast majority of hopitals that are reusing the medical devices are sterilizing the devices in-house. Infection control experts have criticised the practice as being “fraught with risk”, according to a story by the Canadian Press.
…tragedies like the tainted blood scandal and cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease — the human form of mad cow disease — linked to reuse of tools used in brain surgery have deepened the understanding of infection risks and raised the bar for infection control in hospitals.No Regulations:
The story reports that while there appears to be consensus among health care professionals that a national policy is needed and that the practice of in-house reprocessing ought to be banned, a regulatory void means that in many parts of the country hospitals can do as they wish when it comes to reuse of single-use medical devices.
I posted yesterday about the concerns of guards and inmates over asbestos found in the Cape Breton Correctional Facility.
When the announcement was made this week about the presence of asbestos in the jail, Justice Minister Cecil Clarke said all proper procedures had been followed.
“When issues come forward we respond to those and follow the prescribed procedures and policies in place and that’s been done,” said Clarke.
Asbestos found in the Cape Breton Correctional Facility may have injured the guards and inmates that were exposed to the dangerous cancer causing mineral, according to the union that represents Nova Scotia’s jail guards.
The province of Nova Scotia has released air quality test results at the prison which show:
“The reported values were well below the acceptable criteria of 0.1 fibres per cubic centimetre”
