Connect with us

Health

Canadian dentists desperate for details on federal dental care plan

Published

7 minute read

News release from Canada’s Provincial and Territorial Dental Associations

Canadian dentists to MPs: We need answers about the Canadian Dental Care Plan

Lack of consultation with provincial and territorial dental associations is worrying

There are only two months left before the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) becomes available to many more Canadians. Yet more than 25,000 dentists nationwide are in the dark about how the Government of Canada will safeguard access to dental care.

In a letter sent to Members of Parliament (MPs) this week, the presidents of provincial and territorial dental associations across the country asked how the government will:

  • Safeguard employer-provided dental plans that two-thirds of Canadians currently have access to?
  • Ensure that a strong federal program can be coordinated with existing provincial programs?
  • Protect patient choice and maintain the patient-provider relationship?
  • Ensure minimal, efficient administration that promotes timely access to care?
  • Respect the costs of delivering dental care to maximize provider participation?
  • Increase the number of dental assistants and dental hygienists to meet the demands of the CDCP?

Dentists want to champion a CDCP that will respect patients, providers, and taxpayers. The provincial and territorial dental associations are concerned that the CDCP has been compromised by a lack of meaningful consultation with dentists – who will be expected to deliver on the government’s promises.

The CDCP is currently in final planning stages, with a potential rollout in 2024 that will attempt to increase access to uninsured Canadians under 18, people with disabilities, and seniors who have an annual family income of less than $90,000. Dentists believe all Canadians need access to dental care. If not done properly, two-thirds of Canadians who have great employer-provided dental plans could lose their coverage and be forced into a worse plan. Costs would then skyrocket, which means the $13 billion over five years the government set aside would not be enough to sustain the plan.

Let’s take the time to get it right. We can increase access to dental care right now through an expansion of the interim measure already in place – the Canada Dental Benefit. This establishes a fixed dollar amount that a patient can use to be reimbursed for dental-related expenses.

Facts:

  • Canada’s provincial and territorial dental associations represent more than 25,000 licensed dentists working in more than 16,000 offices. They treat more than 30 million Canadians every year and employ at least 50,0001 oral health care workers.
  • Over 60 per cent of Canadians have a dentist they visit on a regular basis.2
  • A recent survey commissioned by Health Canada found that nearly nine out 10 Canadians are satisfied with the Canada Dental Benefit.3

Quotes:

“To succeed, this plan needs to work for both patients and providers, and to work in each province. What we are recommending is based on decades of experience and caring for the oral health needs of the more than 30 million people that come into our dental offices across the country every year.” — Dr. Bruce Yaholnitsky, President, Alberta Dental Association

“Poorly designed programs do not improve access to care, and they leave the most vulnerable people in society behind. This is an historic opportunity, but only if the government gets it right. Dentists have the expertise, experience, and skills to know what it takes to ensure good oral and overall health.” — Dr. Rob Wolanski, President, British Columbia Dental Association

“As dentists we are excited to be a part of this Canadian dental care program, but there are key critical issues that need to be included for this program to be successful.” — Dr. Scott Leckie, President, Manitoba Dental Association

“New Brunswick dentists are already extremely busy with the recent spike in population and the backlog in demand for services related to Covid-19. This program was intended to provide dental care to the 35 per cent of Canadians who are uninsured. It needs to be easy to understand and to administer, and to be fair to all parties, including patients, dental care providers and taxpayers. Canadians need to know what benefits are being provided and which are not, before they arrive at the dental clinic.” — Dr. Joanah Campbell, President, New Brunswick Dental Society

“The new program must be sustainable in terms of funding, and easy to understand and access. It has to be patient-centred and work for everyone.” — Dr. Shane Roberts, President, Newfoundland & Labrador Dental Association

“While the CDCP has the potential to improve the lives of many Canadians, this can only be achieved if it’s done right. To ensure the greatest possible outcome, we must consider all of the moving pieces and take a patient-centred approach.” — Dr. Juli Waterbury, President, Nova Scotia Dental Association

“The CDCP could be a game-changer for Canadians’ access to dental care. But we have one chance to get it right. Here in Ontario, we have seen that dental care programs developed without the input of dentists are doomed to fail. Just look at the Ontario Seniors Dental Care Program, where waiting lists are up to two years long in some areas, and some patients have to travel ridiculously long distances to receive treatment.” — Dr. Brock Nicolucci, President, Ontario Dental Association

“This new program has the potential to improve access to care for many Canadians. It must be sustainable, patient-centred, and easy to access for patients. A poorly designed program will not improve access to care which is something we would like to avoid. We want this to work for Canadians.” — Dr. Derek Thiessen, President, College of Dental Surgeons of Saskatchewan

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Addictions

Poilievre attacks decriminalization of hard drugs with Safe Hospitals Act

Published on

 New release from the Conservative Party 

The Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of Canada’s Common Sense Conservatives, announced his plan today to ban dangerous weapons and drugs and punish those who harm doctors and nurses.

The Problem:

After nine years, Justin Trudeau’s radical experiment of decriminalizing hard drugs has failed. Since Trudeau formed government, over 42,000 Canadians have died from drug overdoses. Nanaimo, for example, has seen a nearly 400 percent increase in drug overdose deaths in the last four years alone, yet Trudeau decided to allow opioids, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine to be used in public places like hospitals and parks anyway.

The results of this experiment have been catastrophic. Chaos and disorder have reigned free in public spaces across British Columbia. Our once-safe hospitals are being destroyed by criminals and hard drugs, with the B.C. Nurses Union ringing the alarm bell, saying that patients and staff have been exposed to harmful, illegal drugs. The BC Nurses Union also reported that meth was being smoked in a unit just hours after the birth of a newborn baby. In northern British Columbia, the public health agency put out a memo telling hospital staff to allow patients to bring knives and other weapons into hospitals.

Life became so miserable that BC’s radical NDP Premier asked Justin Trudeau to walk back parts of his wacko decriminalization policy. But the Liberals haven’t learnt from their mistakes.

The Cause: 

Two years ago, the Liberal Government granted the BC NDP Government’s request to allow hard drugs across the province, including in public spaces. In the first year of this reckless experiment, 2,500 Canadians died from drug overdoses. Meanwhile, community spaces like soccer fields, hospitals and city squares have been devastated by crime and disorder.

But Justin Trudeau refuses to rule out the requests from Toronto Public Health and the City of Montreal to allow hard drugs in Canada’s two largest cities. He also won’t say whether hard drugs should be allowed in children’s parks, hospitals and public transit. On top of this, the Liberal Minister of Mental Health refuses to acknowledge that their dangerous experiment was a failure.

The Solution: 

Common Sense Conservatives will not allow this devastating experiment to play out in other Canadian communities. Canadians deserve a government that will keep hard drugs out of hospitals and will protect staff and patients. We will:

  1. Create an aggravating factor for the purposes of sentencing if a criminal has a weapon in a hospital.
  2. End the Health Minister’s power to grant exemptions under s.56 of the Controlled Drug and Substances Act if the exemption would allow people to use dangerous illicit drugs like fentanyl and meth in hospitals. This means that even if Trudeau grants Toronto and Montreal’s request to decriminalize hard drugs, our hospitals will be protected.
  3. Immediately pass Common Sense Conservative MP Todd Doherty’s Bill C-321, which will create an aggravating factor for assault committed against healthcare workers or first responders.

To be clear, the ban would not apply to any drugs prescribed by medical practitioners like doctors and nurses.

The Safe Hospitals Act will stop some of the insanity that Justin Trudeau and the NDP have unleashed on Canadians with their plan to decriminalize the public use of hard drugs everywhere in Canada. A Poilievre government will ban hard drugs, stop giving out taxpayer-funded opioids, and reinvest that money in treatment and recovery so we can bring home our loved ones drug-free.

Poilievre said: 

“Justin Trudeau’s decriminalization experiment has failed. It has resulted in death, misery and destruction across British Columbia, while our hard-working nurses live in fear of inhaling dangerous drugs or being attacked by criminals.

“Instead of learning from this catastrophic mistake, Trudeau has doubled down. He’s refusing to reject Toronto and Montreal’s request to allow hard drugs like fentanyl and heroin to be used in Canada’s two biggest cities.

“Common Sense Conservatives will keep doctors, nurses and patients safe, even if Justin Trudeau won’t. The Liberals and NDP must vote for this common sense Bill until we can form a government that ends this deadly hard drug decriminalization experiment for good.”

Continue Reading

Health

THE WPATH TAPES: Behind-The-Scenes Recordings Reveal What Top Gender Doctors Really Think About Sex Change Procedures

Published on

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By MEGAN BROCK AND KATE ANDERSON

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is the leading authority in the field of gender medicine. Its guidance is routinely used by top medical associations in the U.S. and abroad, while its standards of care inform insurance companies’ approach to coverage policies.

But behind closed doors, top WPATH doctors discussed, and at times seemed to challenge, the organization’s own published guidelines for sex change procedures and acknowledged pushing experimental medical interventions that can have devastating and irreversible complications, according to exclusive footage obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

WPATH published highly influential clinical guidance called “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” (SOC 8), which recommends the use of invasive medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex change surgeries, calling them “safe and effective.”

The DCNF filed a series of public records requests to WPATH SOC 8 co-authors who are employed at taxpayer-funded institutions, making their emails subject to open records laws. Buried in more than 100 pages of responsive records from the University of Nevada was a series of emails between prominent WPATH members and leaders, including WPATH Global Education Institute (GEI) Co-Chair Gail Knudson, that were sent in 2022. In one email, Knudson sent a colleague the link to a folder containing nearly 30 hours of recordings from WPATH’s GEI summit in September 2022 in Montreal, Canada, which included sessions on mental health, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex change surgery.

These sessions provided WPATH members with in-depth education on the clinical application of topics addressed in the SOC 8 treatment guidelines. However, the footage reveals WPATH-affiliated doctors advocating for children to undergo risky sex change procedures and even pushing for these treatments for patients struggling with severe mental health issues. Several sessions were dedicated exclusively to treating children and included recommendations for minors to receive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries.

For instance, WPATH guidance recommends addressing a patient’s mental health issues before giving them sex change medical interventions. However, in one recorded session, a WPATH faculty member and gender doctor claimed that mental health issues don’t necessarily affect a patient’s ability to receive cross-sex hormones.

In another video, a doctor told attendees children should be informed that cross-sex hormones will likely make them infertile but admitted that he will prescribe them anyway if a child says they want the treatment, regardless of the future consequences.

A surgeon euphemistically referred to a phalloplasty procedure, a surgical series that includes obliterating the vaginal cavity and creating a fake penis with harvested tissue, as an “adventure” for young people. He did this despite later admitting that those same procedures will “definitely” have “complications,” such as permanent issues with bladder function and tissue death.

One physician called the entire field of cross-sex hormones “off-label,” referring to the concept of drugs being used for alternative purposes than what they were approved for. The doctor went on to say that female patients might actually appreciate drug side effects that cause them to lose hair, because they’d look “more like men.”

The Food and Drug Administration says that when it approves a drug, healthcare providers generally may prescribe that drug for an unapproved use, or off-label, when “they judge that it is medically appropriate for their patient.”

In several other videos, doctors argued in favor of transitioning patients who experience psychotic episodes. One admitted that some of his patients with schizophrenia have to be careful how much cross-sex hormones they take or they can’t “keep the voices down.”

The DCNF consulted medical professionals from respected organizations, such as Do No Harm, who all argued that the comments from WPATH-affiliated doctors show that the transgender medical industry does not have patients’ best interests at heart.

While the average person, nationally and internationally, likely has never heard of WPATH, the modern medical industry is deeply tied to the organization and relies on it to dictate the standards of care for transgender medicine. WPATH’s guidelines are cited as criteria for obtaining insurance coverage by both private insurance companies and tax-funded insurance plans, positioning them as a lynchpin of the sex reassignment industry.

Additionally, their guidelines help inform policy statements from major medical and professional organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Psychological Association and the Endocrine Society. The AAP is currently being sued by Isabelle Ayala, a former patient who was medically transitioned as a child, for allegedly rushing her through sex change medical procedures.

There’s been an explosion in the number of young people, including children, being put on hormones and puberty blockers and getting sex change surgeries, according to a study published in August 2023 by the JAMA Network. This surge has been fueled, in part, by groups like Planned Parenthood, which distributes cross-sex hormones to patients as young as 16. Planned Parenthood saw a roughly 125% jump in the number of transgender services it provided between 2020 and 2022.

Twenty-three states, however, have enacted legislation preventing doctors from performing sex change surgeries on minors amid backlash from concerned parents and doctors who don’t subscribe to the WPATH-endorsed “gender-affirming care” model. Gender-affirming care is another euphemism used by medical professionals to describe the idea that doctors should affirm a patient’s wish to live as the opposite biological sex through social transitioning, hormone therapy and even surgery.

The SOC 8 was released just days ahead of the 2022 symposium and contained several significant changes to how doctors and medical institutions implemented transgender medical treatment. For instance, WPATH removed minimum age requirements criteria that established when a child can or should receive transgender medical services such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries.

WPATH’s previous guidelines recommended that hormone therapy be given once a patient was over the age of 16, but the updated version removed this barrier and suggests hormone therapy begin at the first signs of sexual maturity.

The videos obtained by the DCNF give the first glimpse at how doctors and mental health professionals discussed implementing the new guidelines. To highlight the most significant portions of the content obtained in the records requests, the DCNF has decided to publish a series of articles collectively called “The WPATH Tapes.”

Following this release, the DCNF intends to publish all of the videos in their entirety in order to provide the public with necessary information about WPATH’s approach to medical care and shine a light on an influential organization that has largely remained anonymous until now.

The WPATH Tapes Table of Contents:

  1. Video Shows Prominent Doctors Acknowledging, And Even Challenging, The Experimental Nature Of Sex Change Drugs
  2. Top Psychiatrist Argues Schizophrenic Patients Can Consent To Sex Change Surgeries
  3. ‘Keep The Voices Down’: In Unearthed Video, Doctors Discuss Putting Mentally Ill Patients, Including Kids, On Hormones
  4. Gender Doctor Calls Genital Surgery An ‘Adventure’ For Young People While Describing Grisly Complications
  5. ‘No Idea About Their Fertility’: Gender Doctors Shed Light On Grim Reality Facing Kids Considering Sex Changes
  6. Leader Of Gender Medicine Org Says Binary Sex ‘Doesn’t Really Hold True,’ Cheers On ‘Deconstructed’ Biology
  7. Private Footage Reveals Leading Medical Org’s Efforts To ‘Normalize’ Gender Ideology
Continue Reading

Trending

X