Raising children is a job itself

Book gives patients tools for navigating the Canadian health-care system and getting treatment they need

More than a few of us have been known to complain about the Canadian health-care system: the lack of staffing, the long ER waits, the challenge of finding a family physician, the lengthy waiting lists for specialized tests and surgeries. There’s been an outcry for answers for a long time.

The publication of The Canadian Health Care Guerrilla Handbook: How to Fight for What You Need is welcome news for anyone seeking those answers.

Written by Michael Decter, who served as cabinet secretary in Manitoba before his move to Ontario — and Mike McCarthy, patient advocate and consultant who brings a personal story of living with hemophilia, the book is a must-have, packed with answers to commonly asked questions that will help the reader navigate a complex and fractured system.

The book, written in plain language, talks about how to get what you want and need: a family doctor, diagnostic tests, appropriate medications, a second opinion, long-term care, home care, mental-health care — all of that and more is easily accessible in its 217 pages.

Homegrown grub: Resto turns to the Leaf for freshest ingredients

The term “eat local” has taken on a whole new meaning at Gather Craft Kitchen and Bar, where the journey from plot to plate is measured in footsteps rather than miles.

Head chef Mike Licharson has expanded the restaurant’s focus on local sourcing by incorporating fruit and vegetables grown in The Leaf’s biomes and outdoor kitchen garden into his menu.

Bananas from the tropical biomes star in his banana-bread French toast and accompanying banana compote. Leeks, braised slowly and paired with Manitoba-grown beluga lentils, and Swiss chard — which takes the place of grape leaves in Licharson’s play on classic meze dolmades, a nod to the chef’s Greek-Ukrainian-Irish heritage — are both grown in the outdoor kitchen garden.

The park’s produce complements the restaurant’s other locally sourced ingredients, Licharson says.

Central remains toughest division in league

With NHL training camps set to open in just over five weeks’ time, the Central Division still looks like one of the toughest places to earn a playoff spot in the league.

With three of the top seven teams in the NHL standings last season residing within it — including the Presidents’ Trophy winning Colorado Avalanche (121 points) — it’s clear that the most likely path back to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the Winnipeg Jets is by earning one of the two wild-card berths available in the Western Conference.

And since a couple of teams in the Pacific Division are on the rise, including the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks (who missed the playoffs by four points in Macklin Celebrini’s second NHL season), it’s likely going to take north of 90 or 92 points to punch a post-season ticket.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the moves that were made in the Central, realizing there are a few questions left unanswered for the Jets and the seven other clubs:

Steinbach ER nurses ask for triage help as wait-averse Winnipeg patients strain hospital capacity

Forty nurses from the hospital’s emergency department signed an open letter stating because of the current staffing ratio, nurses are witnessing “excessive and unacceptable safety risks on a daily basis.”

Drunk driver who killed cycling couple, orphaned their infant daughter, sentenced to eight years

A Winnipeg man responsible for a drunk-driving crash that killed two cyclists last summer and left their infant child an orphan has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Kuldeep Singh Gill was arrested Sept. 13 after fleeing from a high-speed collision on Kenaston Boulevard that killed 31-year-old Egor Popov and his 25-year-old common-law partner Kerry Ashley Bonner.

Gill, 46, pleaded guilty earlier this year to two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of failing to stop at the scene of a collision.

Gill, who has a prior conviction for impaired driving, made a conscious decision to drive drunk, knowing it made him a danger on the road, provincial court Judge David Ireland said at a sentencing hearing Tuesday.

Once hailed as sign of strong bond, U.S. consulate in Winnipeg to close

There was much fanfare when the U.S. government re-established a permanent presence in Winnipeg in April 2001 as it unveiled its consulate and hailed it as a major achievement between two friendly nations.

“It is testimony not only to the importance the U.S. government attaches to our bilateral relationship with Canada but also to the increasing prominence of Winnipeg, Manitoba and the western region of the country in bilateral and multilateral affairs,” said U.S. Ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin at a ceremony with then-premier Gary Doer.

Fast-forward to this week when it was learned the office at Portage and Main is set to close, meaning the U.S. will lose its primary advocate for American business and trade interests in Manitoba.

Dwight MacAulay was chief of protocol for the Manitoba government in 2001, calling it a time of celebration and strength between the countries.