150 Reasons Canada Rocks Pt. 2: Health
In honour of Canada's 150th birthday, I am documenting 150 reasons why Canada rocks on the blockchain. Each day leading up to July 1, I will choose a topic and give you the top 15 reasons I think Canada is awesome in that area.
Courtesy of GraphicStock.com
The first topic was sports and you can learn more about Canada's athletic prowess here.
Today's topic is health. Let's get started.
15 reasons Canada rocks at health
We believe in universal health care, meaning health care is publicly funded, not-for-profit, and available to everyone. The idea was first introduced by Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas's government in 1946. The system isn't perfect, but at least no one dies for lack of health insurance.
A Canadian -- Sir Frederick Banting -- discovered how to use insulin as a medicine to treat high blood sugar in people with diabetes. Banting received the Nobel prize in Medicine in 1923, when he was just 32 years old and he remains the youngest Nobel laureate in that area.
Canadian researchers James Till and Ernest McCulloch discovered blood-forming stem cells in 1960s. This lead to the use of bone marrow transplants to treat leukemia patients, as well as to further stem cell discoveries -- like the discovery of T-cell receptors and cancer stem cells -- by other Canadians.
in 1974, Dr. A. Albert Yuzpe, a obstetrician-gynecologist, invented a way to avoid unwanted pregnancies within 72 hours of unprotected sex by using a combination of birth control pills -- now known as emergency contraception.
In 2011, a team at the Toronto General Hospital developed a method to test a donor lung's viability before transplantation -- called "ex vivo lung perfusion". This system cuts down the risk that a lung transplant will fail and increases the donor supply by giving a more accurate assessment of a lung's viability.
Speaking of transplants, the Toronto General Hospital also performed the world's first triple organ transplant in 2015. Cystic Fibrosis patient Reid Wylie received two lungs, a liver and a pancreas during a 17-hour procedure.
Canadian doctors created pablum in 1931. What does baby food have to do with health? Well, pablum is fortified with essential nutrients, making it an easy, low-cost cereal that has improved nutrition for infants world-wide, including decreasing diseases like rickets, which softens bones.
In the 1950s, Canadians developed cobalt therapy, which has been called "an atomic weapon in the fight against cancer." The cobalt bomb allowed doctors to treat deep tumours with radiation. This increased the cure rate in things like cervical cancer from 25 per cent to 75 per cent
When American Dr. Jonas Salk needed to create a massive amount of his polio vaccine for the largest medical experiment in history, Canada stepped up to the plate producing the vaccine at the University of Toronto. Then, when an outbreak in kids vaccinated by Cutter Laboratories of California caused the U.S. to back away from polio vaccines, Canada remained committed. About 11,000 Canadians were paralyzed by the disease between 1949 and 1954, with 9,000 cases and 500 deaths appearing in 1953 alone. Thanks to Canada's commitment to the vaccine, the country was declared "polio free" in 1974.
With an average life expectancy of 82 (80 for men and 84 for women), Canada ranks among the top 20 countries in the world. According to the World Health Organization, Canadian's are likely to live 72 of those years at full health.
Canada offers 15 weeks of paid maternity leave, which gives women time to physically recover from the act of growing and delivering a human being. This is in addition to the 35 weeks of parental leave that parents can take to bond with their children, whether they are biological or adopted.
We're actively involved in the fight to end AIDS. In 1996, Dr. Bernard Belleau developed lamivudine, an antiviral medication that became an important component of HIV/AIDS treatment. In 2008, Dr. Stephen Barr identified a gene that blocks HIV from multiplying or spreading. And Dr. Julio Montaner helped to create the drug cocktail known as HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy), which not only curbs HIV symptoms, but reduces the chances of transmission.
Dr. Henri Breault developed the first child-safety cap, which was made mandatory in Ontario in 1974. This cap has reduced the incidence of childhood poisonings by 90 per cent.
Canada was one of the first countries to legalize the use of medical marijuana.
Canadians are making progress on new medical advancements every day -- like "mind-reading" prosthetics, new tests to predict Alzheimer's disease, better medications to treat Parkinson's, and much more.
If you enjoyed this post, resteem, upvote and follow @redhens. Check out some of my other recent posts, including:
We believe in universal health care, meaning health care is publicly funded, not-for-profit, and available to everyone. The idea was first introduced by Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas's government in 1946. The system isn't perfect, but at least no one dies for lack of health insurance.
A Canadian -- Sir Frederick Banting -- discovered how to use insulin as a medicine to treat high blood sugar in people with diabetes. Banting received the Nobel prize in Medicine in 1923, when he was just 32 years old and he remains the youngest Nobel laureate in that area.
Canadian researchers James Till and Ernest McCulloch discovered blood-forming stem cells in 1960s. This lead to the use of bone marrow transplants to treat leukemia patients, as well as to further stem cell discoveries -- like the discovery of T-cell receptors and cancer stem cells -- by other Canadians.
in 1974, Dr. A. Albert Yuzpe, a obstetrician-gynecologist, invented a way to avoid unwanted pregnancies within 72 hours of unprotected sex by using a combination of birth control pills -- now known as emergency contraception.
In 2011, a team at the Toronto General Hospital developed a method to test a donor lung's viability before transplantation -- called "ex vivo lung perfusion". This system cuts down the risk that a lung transplant will fail and increases the donor supply by giving a more accurate assessment of a lung's viability.
Speaking of transplants, the Toronto General Hospital also performed the world's first triple organ transplant in 2015. Cystic Fibrosis patient Reid Wylie received two lungs, a liver and a pancreas during a 17-hour procedure.
Canadian doctors created pablum in 1931. What does baby food have to do with health? Well, pablum is fortified with essential nutrients, making it an easy, low-cost cereal that has improved nutrition for infants world-wide, including decreasing diseases like rickets, which softens bones.
In the 1950s, Canadians developed cobalt therapy, which has been called "an atomic weapon in the fight against cancer." The cobalt bomb allowed doctors to treat deep tumours with radiation. This increased the cure rate in things like cervical cancer from 25 per cent to 75 per cent
When American Dr. Jonas Salk needed to create a massive amount of his polio vaccine for the largest medical experiment in history, Canada stepped up to the plate producing the vaccine at the University of Toronto. Then, when an outbreak in kids vaccinated by Cutter Laboratories of California caused the U.S. to back away from polio vaccines, Canada remained committed. About 11,000 Canadians were paralyzed by the disease between 1949 and 1954, with 9,000 cases and 500 deaths appearing in 1953 alone. Thanks to Canada's commitment to the vaccine, the country was declared "polio free" in 1974.
With an average life expectancy of 82 (80 for men and 84 for women), Canada ranks among the top 20 countries in the world. According to the World Health Organization, Canadian's are likely to live 72 of those years at full health.
Canada offers 15 weeks of paid maternity leave, which gives women time to physically recover from the act of growing and delivering a human being. This is in addition to the 35 weeks of parental leave that parents can take to bond with their children, whether they are biological or adopted.
We're actively involved in the fight to end AIDS. In 1996, Dr. Bernard Belleau developed lamivudine, an antiviral medication that became an important component of HIV/AIDS treatment. In 2008, Dr. Stephen Barr identified a gene that blocks HIV from multiplying or spreading. And Dr. Julio Montaner helped to create the drug cocktail known as HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy), which not only curbs HIV symptoms, but reduces the chances of transmission.
Dr. Henri Breault developed the first child-safety cap, which was made mandatory in Ontario in 1974. This cap has reduced the incidence of childhood poisonings by 90 per cent.
Canada was one of the first countries to legalize the use of medical marijuana.
Canadians are making progress on new medical advancements every day -- like "mind-reading" prosthetics, new tests to predict Alzheimer's disease, better medications to treat Parkinson's, and much more.
@redhens, I am also a Canadian but I think we Canadians suffer often from rose coloured-glasses-itis.
Also our health system works alright compared to many places in the world but we often overlook areas where our system absolutely sucks and is an embarrassment.
Our healthcare is ok for basic things, but not worth bragging about IMHO. Get really sick in Canada and you're likely dead meat.
Great post though and thanks for the good discussion.
This is all true -- and worth discussing. My intent for this post series is not to make Canada seem perfect, but to celebrate the great things The country does have to offer, or that Canadians have achieved.
Certainly, the country has plenty of room for improvement. But I still thought it would be interesting to highlight some well known -- and lesser known -- things on the positive side. 🙂
Thanks for your comment. The only reasons that Canadians have achieved as much as they have is because they've seen problems that needed to be fixed. So we do need to keep the negatives in the limelight too so that we can find ways to make them better.
Well said @redhens. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my country too and like you said the first step in making our collective lives better is pointing out ways to improve. Cheers!
Hello from Vancouver! Oh Canada, I love it :)
I'm a little upset though as canadians should have eye and maybe even teeth care funded.. When transgender operations are covered before them it makes me think some priorities are out of wack.
I'm supportive of funding transgender operations, but I agree with you. Also, prescriptions and mental health services. I'd rather we invested more upfront on some things instead of paying for it -- at a much higher cost -- later.