Health
Primary Care Network offers all kinds of services for bolstering health and wellness
The Primary Care Network offers a tremendous range of programming all geared to helping folks live their healthiest lives.
Staff at the local office, located at 5120 47 St., are excited about launching into 2022 with a spectrum of 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 carefully designed to help families through the loss of a child during pregnancy or shortly after birth.
Of course, due to the pandemic, programming has been virtually all online. But there has been a silver lining with that approach, explained Lorna Milkovich, executive director.
“With our group workshops, we discovered that with going online, we were able to reach some people that we may not have reached otherwise. For some, being able to attend via Zoom offered new flexibility. Others were more comfortable with that format over in-person meetings.” Moving forward, group workshops will certainly continue to be offered in-person, but the PCN will also continue with online versions as well. “That’s exciting, because it opens the door to reaching a wider demographic.
“Through the online versions, we continued to evaluate things and receive feedback, and we continue to see really amazing results. For Anxiety to Calm for example, it consistently shows that people reduce their anxiety, on average, by 50 per cent,” she explained. “It’s amazing.” As for the programs, Milkovich noted that the popular workshop Health Basics has been re-launched as My Way to Health. “It’s a very core workshop that we would encourage most people to take,” she said, adding the sessions focus on healthy living habits including weight loss, bolstering activity and assisting with chronic pain and maintaining a healthy brain through the ageing process. Essentially, participants will learn a host of practical skills they can put into action, said Milkovich.
“It’s super important that people can make changes that are meaningful to them, and that work with their lifestyles.”
There is always an emphasis on designing the workshops to be primarily skills-based, interactive and experiential. “It’s really about, how do you incorporate these skills into your life?

“With each one of our workshops, you will learn new skills that you are going to practice that week to see how they work for you. By the end, you will have four or five new skills and you’ll find those that really resonate with you; ones that work for you,” she said. “That’s what we find that really works for people.”
In a move to make the workshops even more accessible, Milkovich said many are available in both four and eight- week sessions.
“We are also starting up the workshops every month,” she said. This way, there are no lengthy waiting periods should someone miss out on signing up during a given week.
Another exciting new tool this year is the introduction of a downloadable publication called My Self-Care Journey.
“It’s a journal that is available on our web site. It was designed by several health care professionals as well as patients and other members of the community. The journal is about choosing healthy habits each day, and it helps you intentionally tune into your lifestyle choices – it provides a guide for making positive changes,” she said, adding that there are sections on mindfulness and gratitude as well. Ultimately, solid lifestyle changes typically come from making smaller, more manageable goals, said Milkovich.
“it’s more about those tiny little building blocks in your lifestyle that can make a difference. It’s also about people being kinder and gentler with themselves while building healthier lifestyles.”
“My Self-Care Journey is available to anyone – they can go online and print it off. For those who would prefer a hard copy, they can ask at their doctor’s office, or they can swing by the Primary Care Network. There is no charge.”
Looking ahead, the next Health Café is slated for March 14 and is entitled ‘Gout – Disease of the Kings’. Presented by PCN staff, folks are invited to learn more about this condition and ways to help manage it. Tune in live on the Red Deer Public Library Facebook page at 5:15 p.m. Milkovich said staff are always open to preparing Health Cafes on topics of interest to the public at large. “They can let us know – we’d be happy to hear from them,” she said. 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. Milkovich also highlighted a relatively new program called the MINT Memory Clinic which is available with a referral from a family doctor. Folks are taken through a full assessment and provided with recommendations for ongoing care and connection with specialists.

As Milkovich pointed out, the PCN is also a hub for those seeking information about health and wellness resources in the community. Besides the workshops, health cafes and personal appointments, they can help point folks in the right direction for the best kind of assistance they may need.
“We want to help empower people to live the healthiest lives that they can,” she said, adding that it’s always so amazing to see people make terrific changes in their daily lives.
“We do get stories from people, and it is so inspiring to see the differences that have been made in their lives.”
For more about the PCN, check out reddeerpcn.com or find them on Facebook for all the latest news as well. You can also call the office at 403-343-9100.
Click here to read other stories from the Red Deer Primary Care Network.
Health
News RFK Jr.’s vaccine committee to vote on ending Hepatitis B shot recommendation for newborns
From LifeSiteNews
The goal is to examine whether vaccines on the recommended schedule are contributing to the rise in allergies, autoimmune diseases, and other conditions such as autism.
Vaccine advisors to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plan to vote on ending the recommendation of the Hepatitis B shot for infants and discuss other changes to the childhood vaccination schedule.
The federal advisers, selected by RFK Jr., will meet on Thursday and Friday to review the childhood vaccination schedule, according to a report from The Washington Post. The goal is to examine whether vaccines on the recommended schedule are contributing to the rise in allergies, autoimmune diseases, and other conditions such as autism.
The vaccine panel, headed by Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist and critic of the COVID shots, plans to vote on ending the Hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for infants within 24 hours of birth. The panel will decide whether to delay the first dose to a later time.
Critics of the very early administration of the first Hepatitis B vaccine dose argue that it represents an unnecessary risk, as the vast majority of children are not at risk of infection.
The vaccine committee makes recommendations to the CDC director on the vaccine schedule. Directors have typically adopted the panel’s recommendations, compelling insurers to cover certain vaccines. These recommendations also provide a guideline for most pediatricians and medical organizations.
READ: Florida moving to be first state to end all childhood vaccine mandates
“We’re looking at what may be causing some of the long-term changes we’re seeing in population data in children, specifically things such as asthma and eczema and other autoimmune diseases,” Milhoan told The Washington Post.
“What we’re trying to do is figure out if there are factors within vaccines,” he added.
He said that the committee is examining the potential dangers of using aluminum as an adjuvant, an ingredient meant to trigger an immune response strong enough for the body to develop antibodies and protect the person from the disease.
RFK Jr.’s panel has been heavily criticized by establishment health organizations and the pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma officials have said that removing aluminum from vaccines and replacing it with another adjuvant would cost billions of dollars and take years.
The CDC recently revised its website on the issue of autism and vaccines, now stating, “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” The CDC had previously held that there was definitely no link between vaccines and autism. The change was made at the direct order of RFK Jr.
The McCullough Foundation, founded by famous cardiologist and COVID response critic Dr. Peter McCullough, goes even further in its critique of childhood vaccines. In a recent extensive report, the authors analyzed 12 studies comparing routinely vaccinated with unvaccinated children. According to the report, all of these studies showed “superior overall health outcomes among the unvaccinated, including significantly lower risks of chronic medical problems and neuropsychiatric disorders such as ASD [Autism spectrum disorder].”
Health
23,000+ Canadians died waiting for health care in one year as Liberals pushed euthanasia
From LifeSiteNews
Tens of thousands of Canadians have died while on waitlists in recent years, according to new data. Meanwhile, euthanasia now accounts for five percent of all deaths in Canada.
Over 23,000 Canadians have died while on waitlists for medical care as Liberals focused on euthanasia expansions.
According to government figures published on November 26 by Canadian think tank SecondStreet.org, 23,746 patients died on government waiting lists for health care between April 2024 and March 2025.
“What’s really sad is that behind many of these figures are stories of patients suffering during their final years – grandparents who dealt with chronic pain while waiting for hip operations, people leaving children behind as they die waiting for heart operations, so much suffering,” SecondStreet.org President Colin Craig explained.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. If we copied better-performing European public health systems, we could greatly reduce patient suffering,” he continued.
According to the data, collected through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, there has been a three percent increase of deaths while on waitlists compared to last year. The number is likely much higher, as the reports did not include figures from Alberta and some parts of Manitoba.
Data further revealed that 100,876 Canadians have died while waiting for care since 2018, thanks to increased wait times and insufficient staffing.
“It’s interesting that governments will regularly inspect restaurants and report publicly if there’s a minor problem such as a missing paper towel holder,” Craig noted. “Meanwhile, no government reports publicly on patients dying on waiting lists. It’s quite hypocritical.”
At the same time, the Liberal government has worked to expand euthanasia 13-fold since it was legalized, making it the fastest growing euthanasia program in the world. Meanwhile, Health Canada has released a series of studies on advance requests for assisted suicide.
As LifeSiteNews reported earlier this week, so-called “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID) is responsible for five percent of all deaths in Canada in 2024.
At the same time, internal documents from Ontario doctors in 2024 that revealed Canadians are choosing euthanasia because of poverty and loneliness, not as a result of an alleged terminal illness.
Currently, wait times to receive genuine health care in Canada have increased to an average of 27.7 weeks, leading some Canadians to despair and opt for assisted suicide instead of waiting for medical aid. At the same time, sick and elderly Canadians who have refused to end their lives have reported being called “selfish” by their providers.
In one case, an Ontario doctor revealed that a middle-aged worker, whose ankle and back injuries had left him unable to work, felt that the government’s insufficient support was “leaving (him) with no choice but to pursue” euthanasia.
Other cases included an obese woman who described herself as a “useless body taking up space,” which one doctor argued met the requirements for assisted suicide because obesity is “a medical condition which is indeed grievous and irremediable.”
The most recent reports show that euthanasia is the sixth highest cause of death in Canada. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.
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