Health Care

What is... Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) - cartoon of exhausted snail

What Is… ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue)

In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms… but not this week. Instead, we’ll take a look at ME/CFS, and why it’s absolutely not all in someone’s head. The National Institutes of Health describes ME/CFS as “a debilitating disease that lacks a universally accepted case definition, cause, diagnosis, or …

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Just a psych patient? Mental illness stigma in the ER

Just a Psych Patient? Mental Illness Stigma in the ER

People with mental illness can come up against stigmatized attitudes within mental health care, but having a mental illness diagnosis can also make it difficult to access appropriate care for physical health issues. A recent CBC News story provides an example of a man whose physical issues were written off because he was just a …

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Chiropractic Quackery: The Wacky Fringe Side

Let’s say your back hurts. You go to a chiropractor, over a few visits they crack a few joints, and that’s all she wrote, right? That’s certainly what I used to think about chiropractic. It turns out, though, that quackery has been around from the very beginning of chiropractic. The modern back-cracking that most of …

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Tree diagram showing effects of social inquities

Why Social Determinants of Health Matter

Social determinants of health represent those factors that, whether we have control over them or not, can significantly influence both physical and mental health outcomes. Differences produced by social injustice can (and does) produce systemic health inequities between rich and poor, with a “social gradient” in between. The social determinants of health The Government of …

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Is Health Care a Right or a Privilege?

Is access to health care a right that should be shared by all people regardless of socioeconomic status? Or is it a privilege that belongs to those who can afford to pay? Views on that seem to depend a lot on where people live. Growing up in Canada, all I ever knew was a public …

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Why Funding Community Mental Health Care Matters

When it comes to mental health care, or health care in general for that matter, a simple fact is that the sicker people get, the more it costs to treat them. Sicker people need more acute services, and they need to continue accessing those services for longer amounts of time. Acute care services are extremely …

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How Trauma-Informed Practice can Improve Mental Health Care

So, what is it to be trauma-informed? Trauma-informed practice recognizes the intersectionality of trauma, mental health, and substance abuse, with an awareness that anyone may have experienced trauma, whether they’ve disclosed it or not. Trauma-informed practice aims to create environments that prevent re-traumatization and promote a sense of safety. The individual client’s safety, choice, and …

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