SpankyMcFarland

Does the US have nothing else to send other than Abrams tanks? With their fuel requirements they seem highly impractical on that front. What about something more like the Leopard?

Here is another link: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-send-leopard-tanks-kyiv-allow-others-do-so-spiegel-2023-01-24/

Good news if true: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jan/24/russia-ukraine-war-live-zelenskiy-flags-more-changes-in-corruption-purge-german-defence-group-offers-to-send-tanks-if-needed

The evidence is mounting against Fox - it’s easier to say who didn’t tell them the whole thing was a hoax than who did at this stage. I suspect some humble pie may be publicly consumed before the trial happens in April. America’s leeway on free speech about public figures is generally a good thing but there have to be limits.

The only way a teacher could prevent any student from feeling guilt about certain aspects of American history would be to avoid those topics altogether.

Years ago I thought of opening a restaurant, mainly because I liked eating. Fortunately for all it didn’t happen. In Smith I see a kindred spirit, someone who never really understood what she was getting into.

If there’s a credible allegation of fraud against Dominion, I have yet to see it.

Funding for public health care is mainly provincial, the federal part being in decline for a long time - in other words the federal govt has failed to increase spending as much as the provinces. The article has a few suggestions for change, including a health model based on the CPP. A few things to remember: 1. Many developed countries are experiencing similar problems in their ERs right now. Health systems struggling for years were pushed over the edge with Covid. 2. There are more old people and there are many more things that can be done to keep them alive. 3. Over the past thirty years we didn’t train enough doctors and we certainly didn’t train enough family practitioners. Why be a GP when you can earn a lot more with less hassle in a procedure-based speciality? Doctors under 40 have a more diverse practice, getting into sports medicine, allergy testing etc,, and a different work-life balance. Maternity leave has a bigger impact than it used to because there are more female doctors. Without enough GPs a lot of orphan patients end up inappropriately in the ER. I think we should be looking more to countries with the best outcomes in Western Europe and see if we can apply any of their policies. Australia is also a good model as it has a similarly small, multicultural population spread out over a massive area like ours.

It is strange that we have 13 regulatory bodies for doctors in this country while the UK, with double the population, manages with one. Time will tell how this tussle works out between Ford and the licensing authorities. He may not have dealt with them much before and will have his work well and truly cut out there. Historically, the Colleges had very different requirements so that an IMG might only have been eligible to work in NL, the Prairies or the Maritimes. If a significant brain drain does occur I suspect we might see more ‘diversity’ on those standards again which would increase recruitment and limit movement to greener pastures.

Something else I can tell you (again) from the UK’s NHS: you cannot serve two masters. If you’re working in two systems you will end up favouring one over the other. To avoid such complications, any system working beside the conventional public one should have its own staff.

And the Registrar at the CPSO weighs in: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/expanding-private-ontario-clinics-will-only-exacerbate-hospital-staffing-shortages-doctors-college-warns-1.6229561 Just to reiterate, I’m not opposed to this proposal, merely doubtful that it can be done in a manpower-neutral way. It looks like at least a few Ontario physicians share that concern.

Two Toronto physicians share their opinion:

The whole point of Ford’s initiative is to increase services, a laudable aim in itself. However, it is highly unlikely this can be achieved with the same staff numbers in the province as the Premier claims. Some physicians in Ontario share my scepticism and I’ll include those links below. Radical unilateral initiatives will only serve to fracture Canadian health care still further. Do you know what the expression, ‘play the ball, not the man’, means? I should emphasize that I have no objection to new health care initiatives. IMO Ford’s initiative and even more radical ones are inevitable given our health care crisis. They will require more manpower, though. That much should be obvious.

Ford just announced a health care initiative and now he realizes he doesn’t have the staff to carry it out! Ontario should be providing its own manpower, not stealing from poorer provinces that are struggling to retain their own physicians in a time of crisis. Why bother having a country at all if this is going to be the attitude?

12 deaths per year would surely mean a rate of less than 1 per million per year for Ontario, or 1 death every two years for NL? That’s way too low. Other reports have already been referred to that offer more plausible numbers.

Oh dear, so this is how Ontario plans to plug its manpower gaps. Talk about a hostile move. https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-looking-to-poach-health-care-workers-from-other-provinces-to-fill-shortages-1.6237423

10 deaths in over a year from drugs? That sounds low?

The current system, including med schools, has failed to provide enough doctors to see patients. The public have a right to medical care by doctors and many of them aren’t getting that. The examples I highlighted were of doctors more skilled than the average Canadian product.

I have seen so many brilliant IMGs, far better than the average Canadian, unable to do the exams here or get into residencies because of silly technicalities about their training which may have occurred twenty years beforehand. Another roadblock that often affects married female doctors is being out of practice too long and being unable to quickly remedy this situation with refresher courses. We’ve lost superb South African grads this way - a country that produces many of the world’s best ER physicians for obvious reasons. In pathology there is no need for this clinical rule - they’re going to be out of clinical practice for the rest of their careers anyway! - and we have missed out on extraordinary physicians who have been in research. For example, a qualified surgeon who has also done post-grad research in Harvard and Cambridge. Does that person’s primary degree really matter after the training they got at some of the world’s best institutions where they excelled? Should time out of clinical practice in top class research prevent them from applying for, say, a pathology residency? Absurd. Sensible discretion is required. The public have to realize that there is an international marketplace for such talented applicants. If we don’t want them, they’ll be snapped up elsewhere.

No, no, not a trick in that sense. Basically, we need to adopt a more meritocratic attitude to all industries in Canada. Look at the appallingly expensive state of our airlines and telecom services, protected from foreign competition. Imagine if Silicon Valley had this attitude to, say, Indian grads. Think about all the talent the US would have missed out on. https://globalleaderstoday.online/the-rise-of-indian-tech-ceos-in-the-us/ Few foreign medical applicants would mind a more difficult and expensive testing process. Make it as rigorous as you like. The best grads from India are as good as anybody in the world. At the moment, patients are quietly dying in their beds because they have no access to family doctors. Just because their families generally don’t make a big noise about it doesn’t make it right.

The trick is to assess people primarily by their own skills and not where they come from. In Canada’s weird system, the location of your medical school follows you like original sin for the entirety of your career no matter what you achieve. I’ve seen former UK lecturers who were already working as independent internists in Canada waste 3 years in additional residency training here. As I described above, there are highly experienced people already trained to at least Canadian standards in the UK who could be fast-tracked once their knowledge has been tested. Another problem is that there is often nowhere to get the additional training once it has been required by the College. There’s no joined-up thinking between government, med schools and regulatory bodies. Canadian training is good but there’s nothing sacred about it. I have seen superb Canadian graduates from Caribbean med schools. They were excellent because they were highly motivated to learn. We need more doctors yesterday.

One example I’ve quoted before - experienced non-consultant IMGs in the UK. Take a surgeon as an example. This person might have been training more than ten years over there, going from post to post and only surviving in their career because of their competence. We’ve been lucky enough to employ many of these people. They are far more experienced than Canadian grads emerging from residencies who have done much less surgery on their own.

Well, it’s time in both Canada and the US to close the loopholes and make the rich pay what they are supposed to pay. In both countries the federal tax collectors have given upon on tax enforcement against the uber-rich and their armies of enablers. I think we should sort our own house out first before criticizing foreigners.

IMO it would be a gain and could be a big one if we assessed them properly. For no doctors at all to be better than doctors, they would have to be terrible. The medical colleges are not accountable for the people who suffer harm and death because they can’t see a doctor. In my province orphan patients are now 25% of the population, an intolerable situation. We need to think more about that growing minority of neglected Canadians.

Nothing but if we decided to do it today it would cost a fortune and would have no effect on our manpower shortfall for decades. It is part of the long-term solution.