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Practical health information available to everyone – Thanks to the Primary Care Network

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Health Cafes offer loads of practical health information

Sessions hosted by the Primary Care Network run regularly throughout the year

By Mark Weber

The Primary Care Network’s Health Cafes tap into all kinds of practical health information for residents to utilize.

Hosted on a monthly basis, the sessions, which are currently held virtually, cover a wide gamut of topics that can make a real difference in people’s day-to-day lives, organizers say.

“We try to run the Health Cafes monthly, and we partner with the Red Deer Public Library,” explained Julia Vallance, the PCN’s program manager and a registered nurse. “They are all run virtually right now – you can either watch them via Facebook Live of you can go on afterwards and watch it from the library or the PCN Youtube page,” she said. “If you

join it ‘live’, it would be on the Red Deer Public Library’s Facebook page.”

‘Living Well with an Elevated Weight’ runs April 27 at 4 p.m. and will be hosted by Dr. Sereyrath Ngeth, Recreation Therapist Lynsey Hermary and Jonah Saringo, a family nurse. “Come learn refreshing and up-to-date information
to help you live happy and healthy at your best weight,” noted the web site. Topics range from weight stigma to treatment options including lifestyle, medication and surgery. “After that, we are running a Health Café with the City of Red Deer and Alberta Health Services on May 17 at 1 p.m., and it’s going to be on ‘Year of the Garden’,” said Vallance.

It’s all part of a City of Red Deer initiative to encourage folks to get outside and be more active by gardening through the spring and summer. “We are also going to have Denise Fredeen of Alberta Health Services’ Mental Health who will talk about how being outdoors can really impact people’s mental health in a positive way. We will also have one of our coaches, Lynsey Hermary, talk about some of the different things we can all do outside – other great options out in the community,’ she added.

And on June 15, a Health Café on ‘Post-partum Mental Health’ is set to start at 1 p.m. This session will be hosted by Ivy Parsons of AHS and PCN Family Nurse Michelle Abbott.

This 60-minute session is an introduction to what’s involved with the transition into motherhood.

“The post-partum adjustment period can be challenging as new mothers navigate low moods, sleepless nights and anxiety.”

“They’ll also be talking about what are normal expectations to have after having a baby. What are the common challenges women face? What is considered normal and what goes into the realm of the ‘not-so-normal’ – those kinds of topics,” she said.

Meanwhile, staff at the local office, located at 5120 47 St., also offer a range of ongoing workshops from Anxiety to Calm, Happiness Basics and Moving on With Persistent Pain to Relationships in Motion, Sleep and Journey Through Grief. Others include My Way to Health (formerly Health Basics), Strong and Steady (which focuses on bolstering one’s strength and flexibility), and H.E.A.R.T.S which has been designed to help families through the loss of a child during pregnancy or shortly after birth.

Several individual programs are available as well via the PCN, from help with diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol to pharmacy queries to assistance with everything from quitting smoking to learning more about housing or financing.

Lorna Milkovich, the PCN’s executive director, noted that there is always an emphasis on designing the workshops to be primarily skills-based, interactive and experiential. Most are available in either four or eight-week modules as well.

A key goal these days is also to bolster awareness of all these programs, and to spread the word that they are completely accessible to the public at no charge as well, she said. And as Vallance pointed out, positive feedback as to the programs’ impact shows the information indeed can make a profound difference.

Another exciting new tool this year is the introduction of a downloadable publication called My Self-Care Journey, which is available on the PCN web site. Hard copies can also be picked up at the PCN office at no charge.

As Milkovich pointed out, the PCN is also a one-stop-shop for those looking for further information about health and wellness resources in the community.

For more about the PCN, check out reddeerpcn.com or call the office at 403-343-9100.

Born and raised in Red Deer, Mark Weber is an award-winning freelance writer who is committed to the community. He worked as a reporter for the Red Deer Express for 18 years including six years as co-editor. During that time, he mainly covered arts and entertainment plus a spectrum of areas from city news and health stories to business profiles and human interest features. Mark also spent a year working for the regional publication Town and Country in northern Alberta, along with stints at the Ponoka News and the Stettler Independent. He’s thrilled to be a Todayville contributor, as it allows him many more opportunities to continue to focus on the city and community he not only has a passion for, but calls home as well.

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Health

Radio-Canada journalist defends report exposing ‘gender clinics’ for ‘transitioning’ children

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Radio-Canada journalist Pasquale Turbide revealed that concerns from parents were what originally sparked her investigative report on the gender ‘transitioning’ of children in Quebec.

Radio-Canada journalist is defending her investigative report that exposed a “gender” clinic in Quebec for prescribing potentially sterilizing hormones to an actress posing as a young teen in less than ten minutes. 

In a March 3 interview on Tout le Monde en Parle, Radio-Canada journalist Pasquale Turbide  revealed that concerns from parents were what originally sparked her investigative report on the gender “transitioning” of children, and that she stands by her work despite backlash.   

“Parents began writing to us last summer, when there was a bit of a controversy about names, pronouns, all-gender bathrooms, etc,” said Turbide in French.  

“But the letters we were getting were not about those issues, they were talking about medical transitions,” she explained.   

According to Turbide, the parents who contacted Radio-Canada revealed that their children, who believed they were “transgender,” were being offered sterilizing “puberty blockers” in the name of care.

“We started to look into it, and we easily found fifteen to twenty people who were all telling us more or less the same story,” said Turbide. “They were often very open-minded parents, open to homosexuality, open to all sorts of things but were panicking at the speed of the transgender healthcare system.”  

The documentary, published by Radio-Canada, the French arm of the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), delved into the dangers of giving children “puberty blockers” as well as the regrets of detransitioners, the term for people who have undergone irreversible surgeries in an attempt to “change” their gender but now regret it.   

The report also followed an actress posing as a 14-year-old patient at a private “gender clinic” in Quebec where she was prescribed testosterone and advised on life-altering mutilating surgeries during a consultation that lasted a meagre nine minutes.  

During her interview, Turbide exposed the dangers of taking puberty blockers, especially considering many of the side effects are still unknown.   

“Girls take testosterone, boys take estrogen and that’s semi-irreversible,” Turbide added. “Some things don’t come back even if they stop. One’s voice will stay changed most of the time. The face of their shape is another thing that’s affected. You can become infertile if you are a girl. It’s not yet clear how far it can go.”  

Turbide further pointed out that some Scandinavian countries are seeking to ban the irreversible treatments for children.  

The documentary went viral online the same week leaked internal communications show doctors who offer so-called “gender-affirming care” know that transgender hormones cause serious diseases, including cancer. 

Journalist Michael Shellenberger released the internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which “is considered the leading global authority” on so-called “gender medicine,” despite being an LGBT activist group. 

The “WPATH FILES” include emails and messages from an internal discussion forum by doctors, as well as statements from a video call of WPATH members. The files reveal that the doctors working for WPATH know that so-called “gender-affirming care” can cause severe mental and physical disease and that it is impossible for minors to give “informed consent” to it.  

As LifeSiteNews has previously noted, research does not support the assertions from transgender activists that surgical or pharmaceutical intervention to “affirm” confusion is “necessary medical care” or that it is helpful in preventing the suicides of gender-confused individuals.   

In fact, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including  cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots,  infertility,  and  suicidality.    

There is also  overwhelming evidence that those who undergo “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery. A Swedish study found that those who underwent “gender reassignment” surgery ended up with a 19.2 times greater risk of suicide.   

Indeed, there is proof that the most loving and helpful approach to people who think they are a different sex is not to validate them in their confusion but to show them the truth.   

A new study on the side effects of transgender “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who had undergone “sex change” surgeries in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movement in the weeks and months that followed — and that many other side effects manifest as well.    

Additionally, LifeSiteNews compiled a list of medical professions and experts who warn against transgender surgeries, warning of irreversible changes and lifelong side effects.    

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COVID-19

Dr. Pierre Kory sounds alarm over gov’t failure on excess deaths in Tucker Carlson interview

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From LifeSiteNews

By Stephen Kokx

Dr. Pierre Kory told Tucker Carlson that since the COVID vaccine rollout there has been a ‘skyrocketing’ of deaths primarily among those who are young, and that it is being completely ignored by the medical establishment.

Dr. Pierre Kory was attacked during COVID-19 for recommending Ivermectin and other treatments Big Pharma did not approve of. Now, he’s speaking out about the “explosion” of excess deaths in the United States and calling out the government’s inaction in response to it.

During his appearance on the Tucker Carlson Encounter on Wednesday, Kory stated that there has been a “skyrocketing” of death tolls of more than 158,000 Americans, primarily among those who are young, healthy, and working. The government won’t admit this, he told Carlson, but life insurance companies are getting a “shellacking.” 

“This is the clearest indictment of our public health agencies,” Kory said. The “knowledge that this is occurring and they are not doing anything tells you they have failed… If they were functioning, this would be a major public health initiative.” 

Kory is a world-renowned pioneer in the field of ultrasonography. Previously, he served as Chief of Critical Care Service and Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin. He helped co-found the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). In June 2023, Kory published the best-selling book War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the Pandemic. 

During his conversation with Carlson, Kory argued that Vitamin D was not promoted during the so-called pandemic because it “threatens the disease model.” He also ripped the mask off “high impact medical journals” that doctors and other industry professionals look to for guidance on how to treat patients. They “have been captured” and publish “fraudulent,” Big Pharma-backed studies, he said.  

Kory and Carlson also exposed government officials like President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and others who told the public the COVID shot was “safe and effective.” Kory explained that that messaging was agreed upon ahead of time despite no real studies showing it to be true.  

Kory added that the U.S. government only speaks of “long COVID” when they should be focusing on “long vax,” referring to the variety of long-lasting injuries people have suffered from the shot like extreme fatigue and sensory neuropathy. 

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