Month: September 2021

US healthcare Many workers feel stonewalled by elected officials and scapegoated for the high US Covid death toll Abdullah Shihipar Thu 23 Sep 2021 05.30 EDT Alexandra was working in the public health emergencies unit in a major north-eastern American city when the first wave of the pandemic hit. Although her job was in public health policy research, and not treating Coovid-19 patients on the frontlines of the healthcare system, she recalls the spring of 2020 as a blur of 24-hour shifts.‘We’re trying to survive’: workers face cuts as US public sector lags in recoveryBeginning last March, Alexandra estimates that she and her colleagues worked the equivalent of three full-time years in 12 months. (Her name has been changed to protect anonymity.)“There was no overtime, there was no hazard ...

A Canadian nurse suffered significant facial injuries after she was allegedly attacked by a man upset that she had administered a COVID-19 vaccine to his wife, reports said. Reuters reported that the alleged incident occurred inside a pharmacy in Sherbrooke, which is southeast of Montreal. The man was dismayed that his wife was given the jab and went into the office at the pharmacy to express his displeasure, police said.  CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST ON COVID-19 The nurse, who was described as a woman in her 40s, was confronted by the man and the interaction allegedly took a violent turn. She was punched repeatedly and then the suspect fled the scene, police told CTVNews.  Authorities are searching for the suspect who was described as a man between 30 and 45 years old. He had earrings ...

Dr Nadia Chaudhri is a Canadian neuroscientist. Earlier this month, her Twitter account reached 100,000 followers, and she marked the occasion by telling them she was dying. “Now that I have 100K followers, I want to talk about #OvarianCancer,” she wrote. “Specifically my gritty story.” Dr Chaudhri, 44, is a psychology professor at Concordia University in Montreal. She is also a terminal cancer patient at a Canadian hospital, where she is receiving palliative care for “high-grade serous epithelial, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.” In simpler terms, as she puts it, she will never come home. But Dr Chaudhri is not going quietly. Instead, she has used her “gritty story” to issue an urgent warning to others: “Know your bodies.” Due to her illness, the professor is no longer giving int...

Patients with COVID-19 who have been admitted to the intensive care unit are very likely to experience unusually persistent delirium, according to emerging research. Delirium is a medical term used to describe confused thinking and reduced awareness of surroundings - a not uncommon state of mind for the sickest hospitalized patients.   As it turns out, severe cases of COVID-19 are enough to trigger something similar. In fact, initial investigations have suggested delirium occurs in up to 80 percent of ICU patients with COVID-19, possibly as a result of loss of oxygen to the brain or widespread inflammation. Now a new analysis of critically ill COVID-19 patients at a single hospital in Michigan has found even more evidence that delirium is a very common symptom of the disease - one th...

Vaccination centres have been told to be on high alert or ordered shut temporarily after being identified as potential targets in Australian city. There was relative calm in Melbourne on Thursday after three days of anti-lockdown protests that led to violent confrontations with police in Australia’s second biggest city, with officers out in force on the streets of the city centre. Footage shared on social media showed police in central Melbourne checking people’s reasons for being outside. Officers were also on patrol at vaccination centres amid concern that they could be a target for protests, the Age newspaper said. The Melbourne Town Hall facility was closed after workers there were spat on and abused on Wednesday. The city of five million has been in strict lockdown for seve...