Waiting (still) for wait-time guarantees - Health - Browse All Health Articles.: "Long wait times are the biggest impediment to health care, according to a new report by Statistics Canada.
In 2005, the median waiting time for specialized services came in at three to four weeks, remaining the same since 2003. People usually received medical care within three months.
The Stats Can study surveyed about 33,500 people, age 15 and over. Specialized services included receiving a diagnostic test, seeing a specialist or undergoing non-emergency surgery.
'There's good news and bad news in those numbers,' said Sharon Sholzberg-Gray, president and CEO of the Canadian Healthcare Association. 'In some ways it's reassuring to hear that 80 per cent of people are getting access to services within three months but the bad news is that anywhere up to 20 per cent are not.'
The report indicated that finding a doctor was not necessarily the largest barrier to health care so much as waiting to see one. While the majority of respondents receiving a specialized service did not report having difficulties, 68 per cent of those who did said waiting was the problem. Thirty two per cent said they had trouble making an appointment. "
Monday, July 31, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Watch out for those pot-bellies
Watch out for those pot-bellies: "Belly fat is sometimes called central fat. It's not the soft adipose on the outside of your abdominal wall (the fat that you can grab with your hand), but the hard, visceral fat that envelopes your internal organs.
Visceral fat is scary. Here's why.
While the rest of your body goes about its daily business, your visceral fat is enacting its own agenda. At the top of that agenda is what should be one of the most sinister words in any language: inflammation.
Inflammation is the link between fat and coronary heart disease and diabetes (and possibly cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases)."
Visceral fat is scary. Here's why.
While the rest of your body goes about its daily business, your visceral fat is enacting its own agenda. At the top of that agenda is what should be one of the most sinister words in any language: inflammation.
Inflammation is the link between fat and coronary heart disease and diabetes (and possibly cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases)."
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Discrimination against fat people
MSN Hotmail - Message: "Forms of Acceptance
Discrimination against fat people is the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. They're the brunt of jokes, cruel remarks and unsolicited 'helpful' remarks from complete strangers who have been known to offer comments on everything from the selections in their grocery baskets to their entr�e choices in restaurants. Recently, in separate 'investigations,' both supermodel Tyra Banks and Entertainment Tonight correspondent Vanessa Minnillo donned 350-pound 'fat suits' and reported back the astonishing news that fat girls have it rough! Both of these genetic lottery winners tearfully complained to their respective audiences that they were 'invisible' to many while being ridiculed outright by others. ('Three people turned and laughed right in my face!' exclaimed Banks.)
The good news -- from a humanitarian point of view, anyway -- is that these times may be a-changing. According to new market research by major opinion polling firm NPD, America's attitudes toward overweight people are shifting from rejection toward acceptance. Over a 20-year period, the percentage of Americans who said they find overweight people less attractive steadily dropped from 55% to 24%.
Many argue that these figures may not reflect what people actually feel. Kelly Brownell, PhD, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, has been quoted as saying that these studies don't necessarily pick up on implicit, unconscious bias. 'It's like if you asked people around the country if they had racial bias.
Discrimination against fat people is the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. They're the brunt of jokes, cruel remarks and unsolicited 'helpful' remarks from complete strangers who have been known to offer comments on everything from the selections in their grocery baskets to their entr�e choices in restaurants. Recently, in separate 'investigations,' both supermodel Tyra Banks and Entertainment Tonight correspondent Vanessa Minnillo donned 350-pound 'fat suits' and reported back the astonishing news that fat girls have it rough! Both of these genetic lottery winners tearfully complained to their respective audiences that they were 'invisible' to many while being ridiculed outright by others. ('Three people turned and laughed right in my face!' exclaimed Banks.)
The good news -- from a humanitarian point of view, anyway -- is that these times may be a-changing. According to new market research by major opinion polling firm NPD, America's attitudes toward overweight people are shifting from rejection toward acceptance. Over a 20-year period, the percentage of Americans who said they find overweight people less attractive steadily dropped from 55% to 24%.
Many argue that these figures may not reflect what people actually feel. Kelly Brownell, PhD, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, has been quoted as saying that these studies don't necessarily pick up on implicit, unconscious bias. 'It's like if you asked people around the country if they had racial bias.
Looking After Your Parents - Sympatico / MSN Finance
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Looking After Your Parents - Sympatico / MSN Finance: "Looking After Your Parents
Posted 7/7/2006
By Gordon Powers
According to a recent Statistics Canada report on home health care, nearly 3 million Canadians provide home care for a family member or friend with a long-term health concern. Perhaps, like an increasing number of Canadians, you�re even one of them. If not, what will you do when your aging parent can no longer live alone?
If you�re thinking of bringing mom to live with you, be sure that�s really what she needs. While geographic proximity is good for widowed parents, living in the same household with their children can be a detriment to their social integration, a recent University of Michigan study suggests. Living with an adult child significantly decreases the amount of interaction a bereaved older adult has with friends, neighbours and relatives.
One factor could be that older adults living with their children have more household responsibilities, such as caring for grandchildren, and may not have much free time to interact with people outside the immediate family.
What about your own lifestyle? Baby boomers have characteristics that are, in some cases, markedly different from their parents. These include a redefined family structure and parenting, women who have invested much more time in education and careers; dual incomes and increased financial resources; redefined sexual behavior and partnering, and a greater emphasis on health and fitness. So, how is all that going to fit in with your father�s World War II approach to life? And then there are the practical considerations."
Looking After Your Parents - Sympatico / MSN Finance: "Looking After Your Parents
Posted 7/7/2006
By Gordon Powers
According to a recent Statistics Canada report on home health care, nearly 3 million Canadians provide home care for a family member or friend with a long-term health concern. Perhaps, like an increasing number of Canadians, you�re even one of them. If not, what will you do when your aging parent can no longer live alone?
If you�re thinking of bringing mom to live with you, be sure that�s really what she needs. While geographic proximity is good for widowed parents, living in the same household with their children can be a detriment to their social integration, a recent University of Michigan study suggests. Living with an adult child significantly decreases the amount of interaction a bereaved older adult has with friends, neighbours and relatives.
One factor could be that older adults living with their children have more household responsibilities, such as caring for grandchildren, and may not have much free time to interact with people outside the immediate family.
What about your own lifestyle? Baby boomers have characteristics that are, in some cases, markedly different from their parents. These include a redefined family structure and parenting, women who have invested much more time in education and careers; dual incomes and increased financial resources; redefined sexual behavior and partnering, and a greater emphasis on health and fitness. So, how is all that going to fit in with your father�s World War II approach to life? And then there are the practical considerations."
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Advisor.ca - Daily News
Advisor.ca - Daily News: "Retirement boom fuels new investment strategies
June 08, 2006 Deanne Gage
As baby boomers begin to retire, look for more product innovations that combine investments with insurance and offer similar benefits to a defined benefit pension plan.
While that may describe the standard annuity or segregated fund, York University associate professor of finance Moshe Milevsky says those products are only the beginning.
Advertisement
'These are products that are attempting to create systematic withdrawal plans that last for the rest of your life,' Milevesky told attendees of a Morningstar conference on retirement income planning on Wednesday.
Long-term care insurance merged with an annuity is an example of a product coming down the pipeline. So, if a policyholder has to go into a nursing home prematurely, the expense is covered. However, if the policyholder doesn't have to go to a nursing home and is healthy for the rest of her life, the policy will still pay out. Milevsky notes this product has already made headways in the U.S. 'It basically combines two risks that independently would be much expensive than when combined together.'
Another product development is what Milevsky calls advanced life longevity insurance, which only pays out if you exceed life expectancy. So if you purchase this policy in your forties, it won't pay out until you reach age 85. 'If you don't make it to age 85, you get nothing,' he says.
More Conference Collection:
It's the stories that sell CI
Retirement boom fuels new investment strategies
Insurance advisors want more from their MGAs
MGAs put tech on the front burner
Ottawa sends 'clear signal' on "
June 08, 2006 Deanne Gage
As baby boomers begin to retire, look for more product innovations that combine investments with insurance and offer similar benefits to a defined benefit pension plan.
While that may describe the standard annuity or segregated fund, York University associate professor of finance Moshe Milevsky says those products are only the beginning.
Advertisement
'These are products that are attempting to create systematic withdrawal plans that last for the rest of your life,' Milevesky told attendees of a Morningstar conference on retirement income planning on Wednesday.
Long-term care insurance merged with an annuity is an example of a product coming down the pipeline. So, if a policyholder has to go into a nursing home prematurely, the expense is covered. However, if the policyholder doesn't have to go to a nursing home and is healthy for the rest of her life, the policy will still pay out. Milevsky notes this product has already made headways in the U.S. 'It basically combines two risks that independently would be much expensive than when combined together.'
Another product development is what Milevsky calls advanced life longevity insurance, which only pays out if you exceed life expectancy. So if you purchase this policy in your forties, it won't pay out until you reach age 85. 'If you don't make it to age 85, you get nothing,' he says.
More Conference Collection:
It's the stories that sell CI
Retirement boom fuels new investment strategies
Insurance advisors want more from their MGAs
MGAs put tech on the front burner
Ottawa sends 'clear signal' on "
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
winnipegsun.com - Winnipeg News - Health cash cows
The problem is the same right accross Canada. Ask the same questions in your area and get surprized. Start with your self serving Ministry of Health and then your hospital - find out what the administration to front line service providors ratio is!
Legalized self serving incompetence is endemic and not suistainable -QJ
winnipegsun.com - Winnipeg News - Health cash cows: "They have trouble staffing the front lines of health care but the bureaucrats running the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority never seem short of cash when it comes to padding their own wallets.
According to the WRHA's 2005 compensation disclosure report, WRHA CEO Brian Postl continued to haul in one of the biggest salaries of any government bureaucrat in Manitoba last year, taking in a cool $358,923. "
Legalized self serving incompetence is endemic and not suistainable -QJ
winnipegsun.com - Winnipeg News - Health cash cows: "They have trouble staffing the front lines of health care but the bureaucrats running the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority never seem short of cash when it comes to padding their own wallets.
According to the WRHA's 2005 compensation disclosure report, WRHA CEO Brian Postl continued to haul in one of the biggest salaries of any government bureaucrat in Manitoba last year, taking in a cool $358,923. "
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