About Canada: Health Care

Hugh Armstrong, Pat Armstrong

Health care is Canada’s best-loved social program—and for good reason. For more than 30 years, Canadians have enjoyed high quality health care based on need and not on ability to pay. But it is a complex system: changes proposed and those already underway can be difficult to understand and evaluate. What do ‘public’ and ‘private’ mean as they apply to our current health care system and in proposed reforms? As the boomer generation ages, will the growing number… (more information)

Care and Consequences

The Impact of Health Care Reform

Edited by Diana L. Gustafson

Over the past decade health care in Canada has shifted from a cure-care model to a business model. Disguised behind talk of community, care closer to home, consumer choice, patient rights, cost-containment and improved efficiencies, the business model has ushered in “bottom line” financial management which has brought us steadily deteriorating health care services. Framed within a clear analysis of this new health care model, the articles in this collection illustrate how diverse groups… (more information)

Environmental Illness in Nova Scotia, 1983-2003

David T. Janigan

Nova Scotia was the first Canadian province to be faced with a large-scale demand for workers’ compensation in a single institution, Camp Hill Medical Centre, Halifax. More than half of the 1100 workers complained of environmental illnesses (or the WHO’s idiopathic environmental intolerances) blamed on the poor indoor air quality, which was exhaustively investigated. In response, the Province established three outpatient facilities, one permanent, and overlapping and following these… (more information)

Health Policy Reform–Driving the Wrong Way?

A Critical Guide to the Global ‘Health Reform’ Industry

John Lister

John Lister has provided the definitive critique of market-oriented health care ‘reforms’ that the World Bank has been promoting at least since 1993. His book is a critical contribution to the struggle for equity-oriented, rights-based approaches to health systems in rich and poor countries alike.— Ronald Labonte, Canadian Research Chair and Ted Schrecker, Senior Policy Researcher, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa John Lister’s book is a powerful, worldwide… (more information)

Real Nurses and Others

Racism in Nursing

Tania Das Gupta

“Most nurses of colour experience everyday forms of racism, including being infantilized and marginalized. Most reported being “put down,” insulted or degraded because of race/ethnicity/colour. A significant proportion of nurses, non-white and white, report having witnessed an incident where a nurse was treated differently because of his/her race/ethnicity/colour.” These are only some of the conclusions that author Tania Das Gupta arrived at as a result of her… (more information)

Terminal Damage

The Politics of VLTs in Atlantic Canada

Peter McKenna

“This book is assuredly not an anti-gambling screed. What I’m against, and make no doubt about it, is the scourge of the video lottery terminal (VLT), and the fact that not all gambling is created equal. There is a reason why those in the know refer to those electronic devices as ‘killer machines’ and the ‘crack cocaine of gambling’.”—from the Introduction The Atlantic Lottery Corporation promotes its VLT product as a win-win for Atlantic Canada. &… (more information)

With Child

Substance Use During Pregnancy, A Woman-Centred Approach

Edited by Susan C. Boyd, Lenora Marcellus

Drug use is among the behaviours that are associated with or a consequence of poverty. The contributors to this volume propose that those who provide services for pregnant drugusing women must recognize that care of women with social problems that affect pregnancy outcome should be approached in the same way as care for women with medical problems that have obstetric consequences. This book provides practitioners and researchers with valuable information about maternal drug use, best practices and… (more information)