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Biomedical subjects

N Robb

Publications and source records attributed to N Robb.

52 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1995

Some physicians remain sceptical as metamorphosis of health care continues in PEI.

Prince Edward Island has restructured its health care system by dismantling former decision-making bodies and establishing provincial and regional health boards and a policy council. The province hopes this move will make people think about health care in a more comprehensive way and strengthen community involvement in it. However, some sceptical physicians think the impetus behind the reforms is the desire to save money, not improve health care. "Health reform is strictly fiscal reform," says Dr. Robert Colborne, immediate past president of the PEI Medical Society.

Community Health Planning↗
PubMed1995

Where is the silver lining? Anxious doctors ask.

When Nova Scotia elected a Liberal government in September 1993, a wave of optimism washed over the province's medical community. One of their own, Dr. John Savage, was now premier, and another, Dr. Ron Stewart, was minister of health. However, anticipation soon turned to anger as Stewart took aim at physician fees and hospital costs to help reduce the province's health care budget by $62 million. Last November, relations between him and the Medical Society of Nova Scotia (MSNS) hit bottom. In an uncharacteristically political move, the society launched an ad campaign featuring slogans such as "Death by 1000 cuts" and "Uncle Sam want me. Ron Stewart doesn't." Four months later, the health department and the MSNS called a truce, with an agreement that many physicians consider a positive step. Today the province and its doctors are speaking again, and the medical society is working hard to help define physicians' roles in a new, regionalized health care system. But has the mood of doctors really improved? Last spring, CMAJ interviewed a cross section of Nova Scotia physicians to find out.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1995

Past presidents join forces to refurbish gravesite of Sir Charles Tupper, first CMA president.

The CMA's past presidents have donated a plaque and refurbished the headstone and plot at the Halifax gravesite of Sir Charles Tupper, the association's first president. "Sir Charles Tupper was a very significant personality in the conception of a national medical association and the past presidents wanted that fact to be remembered," Dr. Athol Roberts says of the endeavour.

Canada↗
PubMed1995

University acknowledges special risks, introduces drug program for anesthetists.

Anesthetists are at special risk for becoming addicted to some of the drugs they work with. The problem was highlighted by the recent death of a physician in Comox, BC, and a doctor's brush with death at a hospital near Ottawa. The University of Ottawa has responded with a program, the professional Assistance Program for the Impaired or Disabled Physician, that is in the final stages of approval. Although it will be aimed initially at anesthetists and anesthesia residents in the university's teaching hospitals, there are hopes the program will spread eventually to other medical departments.

Analgesics, Opioid↗
PubMed1995

Some suffer adjustment pains as Blue Cross changes drug-benefit program on East Coast.

Blue Cross of Atlantic Canada has revised its drug-benefit program by restricting the number of drugs eligible for automatic benefits. The program still covers more than 3000 medications, but not items such as nicotine-replacement products, antihistamines, or cough and cold medications. The centrepiece of the revised program is a "special-authorization" process that affects about 140 expensive but "commonly prescribed" drugs such as antidepressant products and medications for migraine treatment. Although may applaud the not-for-profit corporation's intentions, some doctors and patients have experienced difficulty adjusting to the changes.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance Plans↗
PubMed1995

The message will be in the patient's receipt as New Brunswick prepares high-tech information system.

An effort to make the public appreciate the real cost of medical services has led to the development of an extensive medical-information and billing system in New Brunswick that uses a personal-information card. Likened to a credit card with unlimited credit, each has a magnetic strip with essential personal information with which to feed a province-wide computer system that eventually will link medicare, patients, doctors, prescription-drug programs and hospitals. The province hopes to have a pilot project running by year's end and then to introduce the system region by region.

Health Expenditures↗
PubMed1995

The environment was right for Nova Scotia's new environmental health clinic.

With a $1-million contribution from the Nova Scotia government, Dalhousie University medical school is establishing an environmental health clinic that will research and treat the controversial condition known as multiple-chemical sensitivity. Already several hundred Nova Scotians, including about 100 former employees of Halifax's Camp Hill Hospital, have been referred to a part-time clinic that addresses environmental illness and other unexplained conditions. Some physicians contend that the sensitivity is largely psychosomatic and treatments provide little more than a placebo effect, but proponents believe research will support environmental health's goal of becoming a new, recognized speciality.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Were jobs more important than health in Sydney?

Unusually high cancer rates in Sydney, NS, have finally prompted an epidemiologic study that will look at the interplay of occupational and environmental exposure, smoking and genetic predisposition. The study is part of a $3.6 million healthy communities project, and it may determine the effect of coke-oven emissions on steelworkers and residents.

Environmental Exposure↗
PubMed1995

Controversy still simmers over plan to build plasma-fractionation plant in Nova Scotia.

Controversy still simmers over a plan by the Canadian Red Cross Society and a US biopharmaceutical manufacturer to build a plasma-fractionation plant near Halifax. The unilateral decision to go ahead with the plant was taken as the Krever inquiry into Canada's blood-supply system was holding public hearings across the country. A panel created to evaluate the proposal has supported the fractionation plant, but made additional recommendations concerning product pricing, research and development, plasmapheresis centres and membership of the Board of Directors.

Chemical Fractionation↗