Canada: First Nations tbc statistics obscured

Federal MPs on the House of Commons health committee got an earful Tuesday morning from an army of First Nations chiefs, doctors and public health experts who said Ottawa's plan to combat TB is failing First Nations people.
Data on outbreaks and infection rates are spotty and kept secret under the guise of patient confidentiality. Jurisdictional squabbles between the federal and provincial governments stymie treatment and prevention programs on reserves. A nearly 20-year-old national plan to combat the disease is only slowly being reviewed. There are no national standards on monitoring and controlling TB and it's tricky to do simple things like fly in a mobile X-ray unit to help confirm a diagnosis in a remote community.
Kimberley Barker, a doctor and adviser to the Assembly of First Nations, said Ottawa has so little control over its regional operations that there's little accountability on TB spending.
That bleak assessment follows a Winnipeg Free Press investigation that found some Manitoba communities have recorded some of the highest TB rates in the world since the 1970s.
Places like Lac Brochet have recorded 636 cases per 100,000 people, a fact Chief Joseph Dantouze reminded the Commons health committee of Tuesday.Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Inaction+infighting+have+stalled+effort+reserves+Health+officials/2934665/story.html#ixzz0m3qaZOnS

Canada, Sanatorium History, Kitchener

When Dr. Anne Crowe began working at Freeport in the early ‘80s, the Kitchener hospital was a home for people needing long-term care.
But the hospital was on the verge of evolving into something new.
Change is a constant at Freeport, from its beginning as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in the early 1900s to its current incarnation as a complex continuing care and rehabilitation centre.
http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/696360

Canada, Sanatorium history

2010 is the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Queen Alexandra Tuberculosis Sanatorium in London. The name was later changed to the Beck Memorial Sanatorium. The sanatorium closed in 1972.
http://www.lfpress.com/comment/2010/04/09/13530836.html

Canada -- high rate of Tbc in First Nations

Manitoba's former tuberculosis control director will testify in front of a federal health committee to push for action to eliminate a disease critics call a national embarrassment.
Longtime TB control director Dr. Earl Hershfield will appear alongside other TB experts and First Nations representatives at a health committee hearing in Ottawa on April 20. Recommendations stemming from the testimony will be debated in Parliament, raising hopes the Harper government will address the poverty, poor housing and lack of access to medical care that help TB spread.
Hershfield spent 37 years at the helm of Manitoba's TB control program and recently blasted provincial health officials for losing track of sick TB patients, saying the system is "falling apart."
Hershfield said he will likely raise his concerns about gaps in tracking and treating TB patients at the upcoming hearing and offer his opinion on what could be done to improve it.
"That's not the way to run tuberculosis control," Hershfield said. "You need a director to make the policy and people to carry it out in the field."
Manitoba recently recorded the highest TB rates of any province, making it a national hot spot of an infectious disease that experts say is a by-product of overcrowded homes, malnutrition and poor overall health. The airborne disease is rampant in many northern Manitoba communities where cramped living quarters help it spread.
Winnipeg MP and NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis brought TB to the federal health committee's attention after a Free Press series revealed some Manitoba communities recorded some of the highest TB rates in the world.
Some northern First Nations communities have recorded more than 600 cases of TB per 100,000 people. By comparison, Canada's national rate is five cases per 100,000 and the rate in Bangladesh is slightly below 400 cases per 100,000.
Wasylycia-Leis said she's hopeful the federal government will be forced to act on the recommendations from the hearings.
She said eliminating TB should be a priority, and that Canada needs a better national strategy to eradicate it.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/experts-seek-to-push-ottawa-into-action-90460139.html