Police violence is a public health crisis, so why aren’t there health-based solutions?
Cities across Canada are facing calls and protests to cut police budgets and to reinvest that money into community and social programs. So far, Edmonton, Alberta, has passed a motion to cut the police budget by $11 million over the next two years. Meanwhile, Toronto has dismissed motions to reduce the police budget, and has instead invested more money into reform strategies such as body cameras.
Locked in a dispute that has already led to some of its physicians leaving the province, the government of Alberta has posted nearly 200 job openings for doctors on a website that caters to international applicants.
The 179 postings on international job board medical.careers.global include ads for everything from generational practitioners in Crowsnest Pass, Alta., to spine surgeons in Edmonton. The surge of new postings, which multiple Alberta physicians described as highly unusual, came over the past two weeks as tensions between the province and doctors continue to escalate over a months-long row that began when the government terminated its master agreement with physicians and imposed changes to their pay formula.
‘Manipulating physicians’: How drug reps pitch your doc
This
is the second story in a four-part series about the pharmaceutical
industry and the hold it has on Canada’s health-care system — swaying
doctors’ opinions, funding medical schools and, ultimately, affecting
the type of drugs we are prescribed.