Category: Politics

Covid is Not Over – and It Won’t EVER Be

As provinces across Canada begin to lift restrictions from the Covid pandemic, there is a plethora of opinions raging about this. Some physicians feel the restrictions are being lifted too slowly. Others feel that it is just right. In Ontario at least, the most outspoken group are the physicians who demand ongoing restrictions. They have taken to using #Covidisnotover on Twitter.

Obviously, when dealing with a once in a century pandemic that has truly decimated patients and health care workers alike, there are still going to be unknowns going forward. But personally speaking, I think we have to realize a couple of things. First, Covid is not over. Second, and most importantly, it never will be.

Is the flu over? Is HIV over? Heck, are measles and RSV over? The answer to all of those is no. The viruses are still around, they are still infecting people and are mutating all the time (that’s why we need an annual flu shot).

There are always a certain amount of these viruses in the ecosystem. Why would Covid be any different? We are not going to completely eradicate Covid.

Given this – the question becomes, what do we do as a society?

One option, and certainly one that is promoted by the #covidisnotover types, is to continue ongoing restrictions, for much longer. Be it mask mandates, enforced vaccine passports, or continued limits on indoor capacity, the message from them seems to be to keep imposing restrictions for……well, I couldn’t really find consensus on an end date.

The most common argument for continuing restrictions (in Ontario anyway) is the continued positive case load. There are more positive cases than ever before, so why should we stop restrictions now?

Well, the short version is that while it is absolutely true that our case load is higher now than in, say October of 2020, many other factors have changed. In October of 2020, there were no vaccines. There were no oral medications that could help treat those who were infected. Guidance on the fact that Covid is airborne was still (shockingly) lacking.

In comparison, in March of 2022 over 90% of the adult population of Ontario has two covid vaccines, and are well on the way to their third. Evidence is clear that the vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious complications of Covid. There is now a strong emphasis on good ventilation as a way to reduce the Covid burden. The government is providing funding for Hepa filters in schools and child care settings. A protocol for rolling out the new oral medications exists, and, like all things, supply of the medications will increase with time.

So to compare just case numbers from October 2020 to March 2022, quite frankly is just comparing apples to oranges. We need to take all these other factors into account.

The other common argument is essentially “Look at Denmark!“. Pro restriction types point to the fact that Denmark lifted all Covid restrictions on February 1st, 2022, and now seems to have an exploding number of cases and mortality. Graphs like the one below are designed to shock people into thinking there is a catastrophe in Denmark:

But the graph doesn’t tell the whole story, and in fact a much more nuanced approach requiring a deep dive into the data is needed. I was going to try but I can’t do a better job of it than Michael Petersen did in his twitter thread:

The short version is that because so many people have Covid now, we need to do a better job of determining who died because of a covid infection (usually a covid pneumonia) vs who died of other causes, but incidentally happened to have Covid at the same time. A better graph showing the Denmark situation (taken from Petersen’s thread) taking this into account is here:

Before people start jumping all over this, let me also point out that I am acutely aware that there is a significant spike in deaths in Denmark recently, even if not specifically caused by Covid. We clearly need to do a deeper dive into why there were excess deaths. But part of that deeper dive must include whether deaths were caused by the restrictions themselves (delayed care, depression and mental health issues leading to people just giving up etc). In essence, is the cure (restrictions) causing more harm than the disease (Covid)?

Look, lockdowns and restrictions were initially necessary. There is good evidence that they helped to blunt the course of Covid. But there is also evidence that they have harmed society as well. The economic impacts with record government deficits that will tax our great grand children are well known. However, there are also other health care impacts.

In Ontario, we have a back log of 20 million health care services, leaving many patients feeling forgotten. There are consequences to delayed care and I have seen that in my own practice, and expect to see much more in the coming year. Yes, those consequences sadly will include deaths.

All of this is before we even consider the collateral damage done to mental health especially in our pediatric population. As Dr. Jetelina points out in her excellent sub stack, there has been a world wide increase in paediatric mental health issues. A 24-31% rise in children presenting with mental health issues and a shocking 69-133% (depending on age group) increase in children presenting with suicidal thoughts to Emergency Departments.

What does all this mean?

My personal feeling is that while we cannot ignore Covid (it’s a bad disease) and we need to continue to encourage vaccinations (they work), we need to start looking at the health care system as a whole. Should we mask in high risk areas? Sure. But should we continue to isolate people socially and restrict interactions in a lower risk population, when that clearly causes other harms? I would argue no.

We have been making decisions for a long time based on Covid numbers alone. There are other illnesses and disease that are out there, many of which have been worsened by the restrictions Covid has forced on us. We need to start basing our health care decisions on what’s best for overall population health, not just Covid.

Crisis at Trillium Health Partners Demands an Intervention

Over 20 years ago, I and a number of other physicians were involved in a significant dispute with our local hospital administration. The specifics don’t really matter now (it’s ancient history). But in general terms physicians like myself felt strongly that we were fighting for patient care against an administration that didn’t value our input or opinion. Administration at the time undoubtedly felt differently. Eventually, both sides became entrenched and the Ministry of Health had to send in a team to sort this out, after we went public with our concerns. The MOH bureaucrat even fashioned a new phrase, referring to their team as “Interveners”.

All of which is to say I still get nightmares when I hear of in house disputes at a hospital being made public, most recently at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga. Not working at that hospital, all I can go on is what CTV News reported. 40 physicians at Trillium Health Partners have hired a lawyer alleging:

  • physicians “are targets of an abusive and unprofessional behaviour of the hospital administration.”
  • “terrified for their livelihoods”
  • “fearful to go work”
  • a physician was called “crazy”
  • “a toxic culture rooted in harassment, intimidation and threats”
  • an environment where “physicians are afraid to practice medicine”

All of this certainly brought back my own PTSD at the events that led myself and my colleagues to take action over two decades ago.

As mentioned, I don’t know the specifics there. But I can say a few things in general from not only my previous experience, but from other institutions where I’m aware of doctors speaking out.

First, doctors in general hate speaking to the media and going public about internal conflicts. It’s one thing to talk about medical issues that pertain to the health care needs of the population as a whole. But to go out and air dirty laundry? It’s not in their nature. For something to reach this point, it usually means that every possible avenue has been exhausted, and there is a real concern for patient care.

Second, every hospital has multiple processes for addressing concerns. There’s a Medical (or Professional) Staff Association that advocates for the needs of their professional staff. There are numerous committee structures and depending on the concern the issues can be brought there. There are internal complaints processes and various Human Resource department protocols. There are chiefs of departments whose role includes addressing concerns fairly. Basically a lot of ways to bring problems to the attention of the higher ups.

Third, doctors in general put up with a lot of bureaucratic non-sense just so they can get the job of looking after patients done. Whether it’s ludicrously difficult hospital IT systems, policies that require us to duplicate our efforts, or any number of roadblocks, physicians complain privately about the working environment, but put up with it because we want patients well looked after.

In that context – to see physicians do what they’ve done, and write to the Minister demanding she appoint a supervisor (essentially someone to take over the administration of the hospital) signals a complete failure of all of the internal processes, and a dramatic escalation. This only happens when the two sides are entrenched.

What next?

What’s Likely to Happen:

Usually, administrations in such a situation tend to circle the wagons and go on the defensive. Attempts are made to minimize the concerns or denigrate the physicians as a small group not representative of the whole. Evidence is produced suggesting the concerns were appropriately reviewed and dealt with.

As an aside, Trillium has already done this by having their own lawyer investigate the complaints and, surprise surprise, the lawyer Trillium pays found Trillium did nothing wrong. I would have thought for issues of this magnitude it would be appropriate to bring in an external person to review. Maybe Trillium didn’t do anything wrong. But surely having an external person say that would carry more weight.

Then, if physicians make enough noise, the issues continue to percolate, the general public expresses concern and politicians get scared. In our area, the issue became so toxic that enough physicians decided to resign their privileges and our Emergency Department was in danger of shutting down part time.

After months of agony, somebody at the MOH (plus/minus political intervention) realizes they have to do something and appoints a third party with the power to actually do something and make some necessary changes.

What Should Happen:

Why go through additional months of grief? There’s clearly a crisis there. The residents of the catchment area of the hospital must surely have concerns about the care they will receive when they read the articles from CTV News. Having doctors who are fearful of the working environment simply cannot contribute to good patient care.

The MOH appointed their “Intervener” in my hospital and the Intervener had the power to tell both Administration and Physicians when they were offside. I personally got told I was going too far offside by him during the process, and I know Admin was also told they had to back down on some things. At least he was fair.

I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong at Trillium, but patients at Trillium need to know that something is being done to address these concerns and ensure there is safe environment for the caregivers. To that end, the MOH needs to appoint an independent third party to help the situation sooner, rather than later.

For a link to CTV News’ follow up report on the issues that includes comments from yours truly, click here.

Governments Should Listen to the Experts and Ease Covid Restrictions

It’s time.

For the past two years, the majority of Canadians have done their part to help combat the greatest health care crisis in a generation. We’ve dutifully worn masks, social distanced, gotten vaccinated and done our part to help protect others.

When the pandemic began (has it been two years already?), very little was known about Covid19 and still less was known about how to treat it. Public Health leaders did their best to provide guidance in an ever changing environment. They got some stuff wrong (remember how we were all initially told not to wear masks ?). But they got more stuff right (the lockdowns did help slow the spread of Covid19).

We all paid a terrible price to fight Covid. Job losses. Economic uncertainty. Decreased social interaction. Mental health impacts on ourselves and most troublingly our children. Delayed medical procedures. The list could go on forever.

Through it all however, was the hope that at some point the pandemic would either end, or change to a more manageable form and we could start to live more normal, if not completely normal lives. I submit that time has come.

In Ontario, we have almost 90% of residents over age 12 who have had two covid vaccines. This would be the number we were told was necessary to achieve herd immunity. I understand that most people need three shots. But the reality is that with Covid being a seasonal virus that seems to mutate regularly, we may need annual booster shots. Surely we won’t keep restrictions forever because we will likely need vaccines forever.

Additionally, we now have new promising medications to treat covid infections. An oral medication that is 90% effective in reducing hospitalizations has been approved by Health Canada, and early distribution to those at highest risk has already begun. I appreciate we need to ramp up production of the medication, and have more of it in stock, but at least we have viable treatment options.

It’s not just this old country doctor saying we need to ease restrictions more. Last week, Ontario’s Chief Medical officer of health himself stated that we needed to re-assess the proof of vaccination process. Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam admitted that we needed to get back to some normalcy. Despite the fact that British Columbia had some of the highest Covid related death tolls with the Omicron wave, even their provincial Health Officer, the excellent Dr. Bonnie Henry, signalled that restrictions would be easing.

I would note that throughout the pandemic, there have been calls for all of us to “listen to the experts” and follow their guidance. Well, they are all signalling that it’s time to change the approach and that it’s time to start lifting restrictions.

To be clear, the restrictions should not be lifted all at once. There should be a stepwise approach to lifting them, but that stepwise approach should be relatively rapid now.

The first thing to go should be the Vaccine Passports/Mandates. Before I go further let me be abundantly clear – I strongly urge everyone to get vaccinated (unless you are one of the one in 100,000 people who has a legitimate medical reason not to). The covid vaccines were incredibly effective against the alpha to delta variants of Covid. They are “just” really good against Omicron. However, with even Dr. Moore admitting that the vaccines will not stop transmission of the Omicron variant (but will drastically reduce your risk of getting critically ill from it) the passports/mandates make no sense anymore.

As an aside, my loyal readers (both of them) will remember that I wrote on July 30, 2021 that vaccine mandates were a bad idea and would “embolden hesitancy and create more fear and mistrust.” Look what’s happened. We now have our nation’s capital essentially under siege from a convoy of people who have been further emboldened by these coercive measures. Think there is enough trust there to come to an amicable solution? Particularly in light of Dr. Moore’s comments that transmissibility will not change if vaccinated?

This is in no way meant to support whatever the Ottawa convoy/protest/blockade is calling itself right now. They have frankly lost the moral high ground by not calling out the fringe few among them who are anti-semites, racists and just plain loons. They need to leave Ottawa and go home.

None of that, however, changes the fact that since you can get Omicron from a vaccinated person as well as from an unvaccinated person – there is no point to a vaccine passport. Get rid of it now.

Once that’s done, the next step should be to ensure our health care system goes back to full regular work and then some. We are already severely backlogged, and there is a whole lot of overtime needed to catch up on the delayed medical procedures.

Next (and in short order) capacity needs to be increased at restaurants/arenas/other indoor gatherings. We need to allow many of the businesses who have suffered terribly to start getting back on their feet.

The last step should be to remove mask mandates. Covid is airborne, and as such, masks provide a significant amount of protection. It will likely be a bit longer yet before we can say that Covid 19 is endemic (always circulating in the community at a stable level without fluctuating) as opposed to pandemic (essentially prevalent at a higher level with significant impacts on the health care system). So mask rules should be the last to go.

But make no mistake, the harms of all the other restrictive measures, whether on significantly delayed health care procedures, or enormous effects on government budgets and the economy now clearly outweigh the effects of continued restrictions.

It’s time to start lifting.

For those of you interested in such things I briefly spoke about Covid19 on CTV News and the link is below where I did mention vaccine passports had to go.

CMAJ Disgraces Itself By Publishing Islamophobic Drivel

You know, I really wonder if physicians organizations that claim to “support their members” really understand what that phrase means. Time and time again we’ve seen physicians representative groups fail their members. Now we have the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) allow an attack on muslim members published.

I’m talking about the CMAJ decision to publish a letter by Dr. Emil that states categorically that the hijab (a VOLUNTARY head covering worn by some muslim women) is an instrument of oppression:

Seriously, the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association, an organization that proudly claims to want to promote diversity and inclusion, that boldly states “diversity is our strength” and has developed background papers in diversity to promote it’s agenda, thought it was a good idea to publish a letter that:

  • claims the hijab is an instrument of oppression
  • conflates the hijab with institutionalized child rape (!)
  • claims that a hijab wearing women wouldn’t be allowed to ride a bike (!!)

The whole letter is simply a series of islamophobic tropes that one would expect to find in alt-right white supremacist type websites. The fact that it was the editor of CMAJ who wrote the headline, only adds to the pain and hurt caused by this whole episode, despite the fact she has since apologized.

I’m forced to wonder, what would have happened if I commented on, say, Orthodox Jewish women, many of who choose to wear wigs to cover their hair? I obviously don’t know the exact religious reasons why but a friend of mine pointed out this link on chabad.org that goes into it in more detail. Now supposing I had written a letter saying that an Orthodox Jewish woman making herself “unavailable by covering her hair” was akin to misogyny/oppression/child abuse etc etc.

Had I said that, I frankly would expect everyone to call me an anti-Semite. And had I written that to a medical journal, I would never expect such a letter to see print.

And that’s the real problem. It shows a double standard that exists within the CMAJ. I would never be able to get a letter full of negative connotations about Jewish/Indigenous/Black/LGBTQS2+/insert minority of choice published in the CMAJ. They would rightfully feel that publishing that would harm a segment of their members and would not be productive to building an inclusive organization.

But a letter (and headline) that blatantly expresses anti-Muslim rhetoric? Apparently that’s ok.

To be clear, this is not really an argument about free speech either. Dr. Emil has a right to his view as distasteful as I find them. He’s free to spout this nonsense whenever he wants and I’m free to think less of him every time he does. Those are our rights as protected by the Canadian Charter.

But, when the journal of a representative organization allows publication of a letter that attacks a segment of their membership, the type of letter that they never would allow if it targeted another segment, well, we have a problem.

Many muslims have been left reeling these past few years by a series of events. An eleven year old girl attacked for wearing a hijab. A pregnant muslim woman attacked by teens who try to rip off her hijab. A spate of attacks against hijab wearing muslim women in Edmonton. The tragic killing of a muslim family in London, in a truck attack where the perpetrator was able to identify the family as muslim (likely because the women were wearing hijabs).

There are many more but you get the point. Hijab wearing muslim women are being attacked repeatedly. As an aside this only increases the tremendous respect I have for those who choose to wear a hijab. To have such strength of faith that you would still wear a hijab, knowing that you might be targeted for an attack, shows courage, resilience and a resolve I find inspiring.

Now, a mere 11 days after a school teacher is removed from her class for wearing a hijab, we have the CMAJ, a journal of an organization that allegedly represents close to 80,000 doctors, refer to that same hijab as “an instrument of oppression.” Seriously, has not anyone at CMAJ ever heard of the phrase “victim-blaming??”

I was going to tell you what I thought, but Danyal Ladha said it much better than I could on twitter:

Having caused such harm, the ball frankly is in CMAJ’s and the CMA’s court. Will they retract the article, issue a full and complete apology, and reach out to groups like the Muslim Medical Association of Canada to learn and educate themselves about how their actions have caused real pain to their members? Or does the vaunted push for diversity and inclusion the CMA is promoting not apply when it comes to muslims?

Time will tell.

Corporatization of Medicine Continues Unabated

Last week, a story came across my feed that seems to have been almost completely ignored by most who are in/or follow medicine and health systems. WELL Health technologies announced that it has purchased 100% of CognisantMD, the developers of the Ocean platform. For those who don’t know, Ocean is a platform that links to various EMRs and allows for securely emailing patients, eReferrals, filling out forms online, and a bunch of other features.

Full disclosure, my practice uses Ocean as well (for now). Personally I find it somewhat clunky and not as smooth as advertised, but there are some positive features to it.

What’s the problem then? It’s a friendly corporate takeover. Happens all the time in the business world.

To understand the concerns, let’s look at what WELL Health does. According to their own website, WELL Health offers a wide array of digital health care solutions. But they also state they are “Canada’s largest outpatient medical clinic owner-operator and leading multi-disciplinary telehealth service provider”. In essence, they run the clinics, and physicians work for them.

A further dive into their strategy, under the “Reinvest” tab states:

“Acquisition of cash generating companies leads to increased cash flows which are re-invested to make additional new cash generating acquisitions.”

Pure and simple – WELL Health is a private, for profit corporation. There is of course, nothing wrong with private corporations. Most people who follow my twitter feed know that I am generally pro-business, and on most issues land on the right side of the political spectrum. I firmly believe we need more, not less, businesses in this country and we need to make it easier for businesses to function.

BUT – acquisitions like these, and the continued take over of clinics by corporations should make us ask legitimate questions about protection of individual health care data. It is no secret that the reasons that companies like Google and Facebook have become so successful is that they found a way to monetize personal data. In much the same way, personal health care data has enormous economic value to companies. Whoever can find a way to properly monetize this, will be the next Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg and so it’s no wonder that companies are extremely interested in getting into this field.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Shoppers Drug Mart, for example, recently acquired a stake in Maple, a leading virtual care only provider for $75 million. They continue to advertise on their website (as of Dec 6, 2021) the ability to diagnose strep throat virtually (which personally I find questionable) and then to send antibiotics to a pharmacy near you (I’m guessing there is going to be a Shoppers Drug Mart near you).

Screen shot as of Dec 6, 2021

In a circumstance where a patient contacts Maple, the doctor or NP gets paid to virtually assess a patient, Maple gets a percentage of the fee to cover overhead – which presumably will be reflected in shareholder value to Shoppers. If a prescription gets sent to a Shoppers, well, they make a profit there too. Neat business model.

But it’s not just companies that already have an interest in providing health care related services that are trying to get involved in this field. Amazon is jumping into health care with a telemedicine initiative. Google has long planned to get into health care, and while not terribly successful yet, I doubt they will stop trying. Heck even Uber (!) wants to get involved in health care.

It’s easy to see why everyone wants in. There is a lot of money and potential profit in health care. And while I am all for companies making a profit, that doesn’t mean that we can’t ask some hard questions about the protection of personal health care data such as:

  • How secure is the data that is being held in the servers owned by these corporations?
  • How do we ensure personal health data doesn’t go where it’s not authorized? (eg. supposing the parent company owned a family practice clinic AND an disability insurance company)
  • How do we ensure personal health data is not to be used to monetize other aspects of a business (eg. supposing a walk-in clinic was owned by a pharmacy. A patient attends there for a renewal of cholesterol medications, and then gets ads offering, say, flax seed oil capsules that are helpfully sold by that same pharmacy).
  • How do we ensure aggregate health data housed in those servers is only used to help the community at large (eg. finding communities that may need extra resources for, say opiod addiction).
  • If a physician stops working at a clinic owned by MegaCorp Inc. for whatever reason, how does that physician access their charts after the fact (I’m aware of a number of cases where access to patient records were cut off immediately upon the physician leaving such a clinic).

I’ve just posited a few questions. I’m sure there are many more. I believe that most Canadians strongly value health care privacy. As more and more businesses attempt to get involved in health care delivery, it is vital that we have a framework for oversight that ensures that patients have the absolute right to protect their personal health information. Sadly, I don’t see any organization/government agency out there asking these important questions.

Time for the OMA Board to Invoke Arbitration in Stalled Negotiations

While most front line physicians continue to deal with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and the resultant backlog of care, the OMA has continued to perform it’s most important function, that of trying to negotiate a Physician Services Agreement (PSA). A quick summary of what has already been disclosed:

  • The Binding Arbitration Framework (BAF) between the Ontario Government allows for negotiating a Physician Services Agreement (PSA) every four years. The last one was for 2017-2021 . We should already have had an agreement for 2021-2025 but the Covid Pandemic got in the way and delayed negotiations.
  • Negotiations for a PSA are supposed to start the year before expiry of a PSA. There is a framework that allows for a minimum of 60 days for negotiations following which either side can call for mediation. After a minimum of 60 days of mediation, either side (or the mediator) can call for Arbitration.
  • IF Arbitration does occur, the Arbitrator must hand down a ruling within 60 days of the conclusion of the arguments presented at Arbitration. After the ruling is handed down, the work of implementing the Award (or if by some chance an agreement is reached – the PSA) begins, and that in itself can take several months to a year. Those of us who were involved in the last implementation process in any way likely still have nightmares about how complex and fraught with challenges it was – I know I still do.

For the current negotiations, we know the following:

  • Negotiations began in October of 2020. The OMA Board gave the Negotiations Task Force (NTF) a mandate for negotiations. A mandate is essentially a confidential, bare minimum set of asks that the NTF must get from the government before accepting a deal. Considering there is no deal, the NTF clearly has not met that minimum. And no, the members can’t know what that is, it would significantly compromise the negotiations process.
  • Mediation began on April 9, 2021. “A large gap” remained between the OMA’s asks, and the MOH’s offer as of June 2021. As I’m no longer on the OMA Board, I have no idea what the gap is like now. Obviously, if there was no gap, we would have a deal by now.

Why should the OMA Board move to Arbitration now? Why not follow the mediator Mr. Kaplan’s recommendation, and wait till January 25, 2022 to go to Arbitration? Wouldn’t going against his recommendation run the risk of adversely affecting the outcome of a potential award?

Because health care is political in Canada. Being political, the time for governments to attack physicians is always, always, always early in their new mandate. In 1991, the NDP government of Bob Rae imposed a hard cap on the physicians budget (first year in power). In 2015 in the first year of Kathleen Wynne’s government, she also imposed unilteral cuts to physicians and in 2018 the Doug Ford government tried to take away binding arbitration.

The short version of the above is that I’m old, and I’ve been screwed by the government of every political party. It doesn’t matter who wins the provincial election of June 2022, the government that is in power will be sorely tempted to revoke any arbitration award if it seems to meet their short term interests. (Yes I know, the BAF is “evergreen” – meaning the process should continue in perpetuity, but the reality is that governments do stupid things all the time, and if one government has tried to take away a BAF process from physicians to suit their interests, then we can be sure another will as well).

And NO, having Arbitration currently as scheduled for Jan to March 2022 is not good enough. Finishing Arbitration hearings at the end of March gives the Arbitrator until the end of May for a ruling. By that time the election campaign will be in full gear, and Ministry bureaucrats will do absolutely nothing to implement any award as they wait for the outcome of the election.

Obviously, going to Arbitration now entails some risks. The NTF will likely argue that the Arbitrator himself recommended waiting till January, and we should try our best to seem reasonable to him. I have a great deal of respect for the NTF for the job they’ve done for the doctors of Ontario, in particular the negotiation of the BAF. But they are paid a lot of (well deserved) money to let the Arbitrator know of legitimate concerns of the membership.

I’ve met the Arbitrator and I have no doubt he will hand down a fair decision, whether in December or March. But members have every reason based on history to fear politicians of all stripes, and it’s the job of the NTF to let him know that that’s a legitimate concern.

Moving to Arbitration immediately, means the Arbitration hearings end likely by the end of December. An Award is announced (likely) by March. At that point, the government is faced with accepting the award, or revoking it three months before an election, and risking the type of anti-government ads the OMA did so well last time. By the time the election is over, whoever wins, the MOH bureaucrats will be well on the way to implementing the award and any “noise” that the award is too much (there will always be noise) will have gone away.

From the OMA’s Negotiations Page

The OMA’s main responsibility is to negotiate a fair PSA for members. The BAF is the best tool they have for not only keeping the government honest, but for political use to reduce the risk of awards being overturned. (NB- There’s no guarantee of anything, politicians do stupid things all the time. This is simply about risk reduction).

Will the OMA Board stand up for members and direct the NTF to immediately move to Arbitration, as we are now legally allowed to? I guess we’re going to find out.

Vaccine Certificates/Mandatory Immunizations are a Bad Idea

First things first, if you’ve read the title of this blog, and are hoping to find ammunition to promote a vaccine hesitant agenda, you won’t find it here. Go watch Fox News or Newsmax or any other QAnon affiliated vaccine disinformation service.

The COVID vaccines are safe and they are incredibly effective. Something like 99.5% of all patients in hospital ICUs with COVID are people who have not been fully immunized. Many of them beg to get immunized after getting sick, but by then it’s too late.

Frankly, I think an argument could be made that the mRNA COVID vaccines are the most effective vaccines science has ever developed. If you remember nothing else from this blog – remember this – I encourage you to all voluntarily get vaccinated for COVID, especially now that we seem to have adequate supplies.

Making vaccines mandatory/vaccine certificates however, introduce a whole new set of concerns that I don’t think have been well thought out.

The rationale for introducing Vaccine Passports/Certificates appears to be to protect society. By requiring documentation that you have been vaccinated prior to allowing you to go to a restaurant/travel in Canada/attend sporting events etc, the thinking is that you will prevent the spread of COVID.

The argument for making COVID vaccinations mandatory for health care workers is that patients should feel safe when accessing health care, and be assured they won’t get COVID19 from someone who is treating them. The point has also been made that health care workers are often required to show proof of immunity to things like Hepatitis B and Tuberculosis. So why not add COVID to the list? (Interestingly, those who espouse this view conveniently forget that health care workers are not required to immunize yearly for the flu, and the flu kills far more people every year than either TB or Hep B).

But.

One thing this pandemic has taught us, is that there is a small group of people out there who are extremely mistrustful of authority. They won’t trust doctors/public health officials/nurses etc. They prefer to do their own “research”. Their “research” is frankly guided by confirmation bias (looking only at information that supports your agenda, as opposed to looking at all the facts, whether supportive or not). These people then (sadly very successfully) use social media to spread their half truths (and in the case of noted health experts Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson – outright lies).

Professor Emeritus in Virology Donald J. Trump, extolling the virtues of drinking bleach to treat COVID infections, and PhD in Immunology Tucker Carlson eloquently expressing their arguments (sarcasm by writer fully intentional)

The damage caused by these people is in calculable. COVID appears to be resurgent in the United States and is being (rightfully) called a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Third world countries are struggling with another wave, and are desperately trying to keep their health systems afloat, while they get the needed vaccines. International travel remains in limbo, and the economic damage caused worsens by the day.

So why then are vaccine certificates or mandatory vaccinations for health care workers a bad idea?

Because no matter what I or other health officials think of the idea, the simple reality is that the vaccine hesitant crowd will spin this as co-ercion.

Celebrated Infectious Disease Specialist Marjorie Taylor Greene discusses the pros of Covid Vaccination (sarcasm fully intended by writer)

And that, in a nutshell, is why I oppose the idea of vaccine certificates, and mandatory vaccinations. We have the weight of evidence on our side that vaccines work. We have been able to debunk many of the stories about the COVID vaccines (remember when the Pfizer vaccine was going to cause an outbreak of Bell’s Palsy and we were all going to walk around with half droopy faces?). With each passing day seeing only unvaccinated people being admitted to hospital with severe COVID we keep building our case. We should be pro-actively promoting all of this in order to let the vaccine hesitant know that their concerns are unfounded.

One thing that has been badly done during this pandemic is the dissemination of information. In any crisis, the first thing to do, should be to have clear, consistent, factually accurate communication. This has been sorely lacking in the past 16 months with health authorities disagreeing with each other.

Yet now, we are again running the risk of doing the same thing. On the one hand, we’ve got experts (quite correctly) proclaiming the vaccines are the best way to prevent COVID.

And now health authorities are turning around and essentially saying ” yah, but we’re going to make you have a special passport to go anywhere so you are protected.”

What exactly do you think those that are already suspicious of authority are going to think? They are simply going to double down on their belief that we have to be “forced” into getting a vaccine, because it’s really not as good as we say it is. We’re going to lose any chance of trying to build bridges with the vaccine hesitant crowd, and win them over with the force of reason and facts (which is overwhelmingly on the side of those who believe in vaccinations).

The whole point of taking the incredibly effective COVID vaccines, is so you can go places and NOT WORRY if the other person is unvaccinated. Even if you are exposed to COVID, it will be the unfortunate misguided unvaccinated individual who will get sick, not you.

Building trust with the vaccine hesitant crowd is hard. It takes time, effort, repetition of facts and a calm approach. But if we go down the road of creating the impression of co-ercion, we’re going to embolden hesitancy and create more fear and mistrust. Vaccine hesitancy will only rise as a result and mistrust of health authorities will increase. Who knows what the long term implications of that are? I worry those implications will last beyond the pandemic, and will cause ongoing problems for health care in the future.

We have facts/reason/data to support the COVID vaccines. Let’s keep promoting that, and not give those who mistrust health authorities, more ammunition.

The Promise That is Canada

A few years ago, a (now deceased) patient of mine was in the office. He had just come out of hospital and he thanked me for looking after him. He then told me I was the best doctor he ever had. It was a touching moment which I’ve always cherished, and was planning on keeping private. But it’s what he said afterwards that I will be reflecting on this Canada Day.

He went on to tell me a little bit more about his life history. I knew that he had immigrated to Canada from Germany, but really not much else about his youth (he was a very private person). He opened up and told me that when he was sixteen, he was a member of the Hitler Youth of the Nazi Party. He fought in World War 2 for the Nazis, where he was eventually shot and captured by Allied forces.

But he also admitted what must have been some very uncomfortable truths for him to retell. He told me when he was a teenager he believed the propaganda about the Germans being the “master race”. He bought into the anti-semitism at the time. He used to look scornfully at people who weren’t white when he was a teenager as he firmly believed what he had been taught – that people of colour were inferior.

After the war, he had a number of odd jobs and eventually immigrated to Canada. In Canada he saw people of all races and ethnicities living and working, mostly respectfully and peacefully together. He worked with, and for, people of many religions and came to realize the errors of his youth. He realized just how wrong the Nazis were in their beliefs. Eventually, he wound up in my practice and I viewed it as an honour and privilege to care for him in the last stages of his life.

I mention this because this Canada Day is going to be one of the most sober ones I can recall. Many are actually tweeting out that we should #cancelcanadaday in light of the many horrific things we have discovered about ourselves and Canada these last few months.

Hundreds of confirmed unmarked graves of Indigenous children, with likely many thousands more yet to be found. Buried in mass graves without anyone to remember them, or their families to carry out traditional ceremonies to honour their children and share their grief.

An Islamaphobic act of domestic terror against an innocent, hard working family in London, Ontario, robbing Canada of four remarkable people who were contributing to making Canada a better place and a better country. Despite the horror and revulsion we feel at this act, there continue to be ongoing Islamaphobic acts such as a man having his beard forcibly cut off, women targeted for wearing a hijab, and attacks on politicians for just saying we must fight Islamophobia.

Anti-Semetic attacks in Canada continue to increase, such as painting swastikas on synagogues and various forms of harassment and violence. A disturbing rise in anti-Asian hate crime and violence, likely incited by people who initially blamed China for the Covid-19 virus. While it’s true that the Wuhan Lab-Leak theory for Covid19 has gone from the realm of tinfoil conspiracy theorist nonsense, to possible, it is egregiously wrong to blame the Asian-Canadian community that has contributed so much to our culture .

And of course, ongoing racism and marginalization of our Black community, even in medicine continues.

I’m sure I’ve missed many groups, but you get the point. This Canada Day, we are coming to grips with the fact that Canada has many flaws and much room to improve. This is particularly true for immigrants like myself who (still) truly believe that Canada is the best country in the world. To see so many failings exposed in a country you love is heartbreaking.

It is right and just and, well, Canadian to think about how we can make Canada a better country for everyone. We must all continue to strive for decency, fairness, equality and fundamental freedoms for all of us. We must come to a fair solution to recognize how we have harmed the Indigenous people to our national shame.

However, this year on Canada Day, I will think of my patient.

I will think about how despite what has happened this last year, there is likely no other country on this earth where an immigrant from Pakistan could be given an opportunity as a child to work diligently and wind up as a small town family doctor. And where that same immigrant, could wind up with a patient from a time and place that held repugnant views.

Canada gave me an opportunity to succeed if I grasped it. But it also gave my patient an opportunity to learn, to grow as a person, to put aside old biases and hatreds. It gave him a chance to get to know other people, and realize we are all human. It gave us a chance to meet, and yes, to learn from each other.

This year on Canada Day, I will think about my patient…. I will think of my friend. I will think about what he taught me. I will think of what we must reclaim.

I will think about the promise that is Canada.

Conscience Rights are HUMAN Rights

Last year, I wrote a blog about Conscience Rights.  The motivation for the blog was the concerning move by the Ontario courts to “infringe on doctors’ religious freedoms.”

I know, I know, the case dealt with whether physicians (and other health care providers) had the ability to refuse to provide a referral for situations where they conscientiously objected. Currently, the hot topic for this scenario is Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). And yes, the headlines simply said the request for an appeal of a lower court decision on granting physicians conscience rights was denied. I also know there was a lot of talk about the right of the patient to determine their own health care (which is of course must be respected).

But in the text of the initial ruling, the courts clearly and unequivocally admitted that they were infringing on doctors’ rights.

I made a Star Trek reference in my last blog on this issue. Hence, one would be appropriate here. It would seem the Ontario Courts were using the logic first uttered by Mr. Spock in Star Trek 2 – The Wrath of Khan:

“Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

But is that really the case here? Will patients be unable to access legal health care services, simply because physicians are able to keep their fundamental human rights? The short answer is no.

In Ontario, for a service such as MAiD, all a patient really has to do is call the MAiD co-ordination service, and they are guaranteed an assessment. A physician who gets a request for this service simply has to give a patient the 1-800 number to call. Heck, patients can even look the number up online and call themselves without asking their own physician.

In short, the service is readily available to those who want it. The needs of the many are not, in any way, shape or form compromised by Conscience Rights legislation. The Ontario Courts have therefore willingly infringed on the rights of a minority, on the basis of a false premise.

Let me also mention the reaction to my last blog on this issue. I had mentioned that in the near future, we would be facing many ethical dilemmas as a society. Not the least of these include new genetic treatments and therapies. Most physicians were supportive of my blog but some expressed concern that brining up genetic advancements was too extreme. One commentator even used the analogy that seemingly all twitter arguments degrade to – “…can’t compare asking for MAID to asking to revisit the Nazi eugenics movement“

And yet.

Look what’s happening in the world.

In China, a group of scientists have inserted human brain DNA into monkeys. They state the reason for this is to study conditions like Autism. Jeez, have these people never seen Planet of the Apes????

As Elon Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, scientists are now actively looking at “tweaking” the DNA of people who wish to colonize Mars as a way to protect them from harmful radiation and microgravity. There is even thought being given to merging our DNA with tardigrades (weird microscopic creatures that can seemingly survive anything).

This s all in addition to work that is being done by companies like Neuralink (another Elon Musk organization) to develop brain implants.

Indeed, as Davis Masci pointed out last September:

“But thanks to recent scientific developments in areas such as biotechnology, information technology and nanotechnology, humanity may be on the cusp of an enhancement revolution. In the next two or three decades, people may have the option to change themselves and their children in ways that, up to now, have existed largely in the minds of science fiction writers and creators of comic book superheroes”

These aren’t some weird tabloid, National Enquirer type stories. There are real scientists actively doing this kind of work. The point being that protecting Conscience Rights is not just about MAiD, it’s about ensuring that on a go forward basis, peoples fundamental freedoms are not impugned in what promises to be the most ethically challenging time for science in human history. It’s about ensuring that people do not have to work on or accept for themselves, things that they find morally objectionable.

As a free society, we have always recognized certain inalienable human rights. It’s not just the right to free speech, assembly or vote. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically mentions freedom of conscience and religion (see section 2). This was due in large part to a recognition that a diverse society is a stronger society and in order to protect that diversity, we must protect fundamental freedoms.

That’s where the judges erred last year. By infringing on the rights of a few, stating that by doing so they were protecting the right of many (which as I’ve shown above, isn’t even the case), the judges have damaged our society as whole, and made it easier to take away more rights from more people. They failed to realize that you cannot make a society stronger, or more free, by taking away the rights of a minority. You only increase the possibility of taking away more rights in the future.

As a society, we must be ever watchful for these infringements on our freedoms. To use another Star Trek quote, this time from Captain Jean-Luc Picard (nerd alert – TNG episode “The Drumhead”):

“Vigilance. That is the price we continually have to pay.“

Let’s Discuss the Astra Zeneca Covid Vaccine

The following blog is written by Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, MD, CCFP. She is the founder of ARCH Clinic Guelph and Waterloo, Founding Director of Bracelet of Hope and Founder of the Hope Health Centre

Let’s discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine.  I am just going to give you some facts.  You can make your own decision about the AstraZeneca vaccine.

On March 29th,  Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended provinces pause on the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on those under the age of 55 because of safety concerns. NACI’s priority is vaccine safety.   Their decision came after the European Medicines Agency ( EMA), Europe’s Health Canada equivalent, investigated 25 cases of very rare blood clots out of about 20 million AstraZeneca vaccines given.  On March 18th the EMA concluded that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine far outweigh this risk if there is a true increased risk of the blood clots.

Most of these rare blood clots occurred in women under the age of 55 ( 18 out of 25).  Thus, NACI’s recommendation to halt the use of the AZ vaccine in this age group pending further review of the ongoing real-time research.

So, 25 cases out of 20 million vaccinations is a risk of about 1 in a million.  That means that if there actually is an increased risk, the risk is 1 case of the rare blood clots out of 1 million vaccines given. One in a million.

Let’s shed some light on that: The risk of blood clots developing among new users of oral contraceptive pills ( birth control pills) is 8 out of 10,000. Thirty four out of 10,000 women who use  hormone replacement therapy ( HRT ) will develop a blood clot at some point.  And, the risk of developing a blood clot in women in general  is is 16/100,000. 

The Canadian maternal mortality rate ( the rate of death in women during childbirth) is 8.3 deaths per 100,000.

No medical intervention is without risks.  The question is, should we take that risk?  That is what NACI will try to figure out in the coming weeks. Let’s balance that risk of 1 in a million with the risk of COVID-19. 

A new briefing note from a panel of science experts advising the Ontario government on COVID-19 shows a province at a tipping point. Variants that are more deadly are circulating widely, new daily infections have reached the same number at the height of the second wave, and the number of people hospitalized is now more than 20 per cent higher than at the start of the last province-wide lockdown.

These variants are more dangerous and more easily transmitted.  They cause 2.5 to 4.1 deaths per 1000 detected cases.  That’s deaths.  The risk of serious complications with the variants is double the risk of the original COVID-19 virus:  20 out of 100.

Here’s a quote that scared me.  “Right now in Ontario, the pandemic is completely out of control,” Dr. Peter Juni, the scientific director and a professor of medicine and epidemiology with the University of Toronto and member of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is over 70% effective up front and almost 100% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalizations from COVID-19. Breathe.  It is not time to throw out the baby with the bath water.  No blood clots have occurred in people over 60.  We should continue using the AstraZeneca vaccine in this age group which is most at risk of serious complications and death from COVID-19.