Risk of death higher with weekend hospital visit

Risk of death higher with weekend hospital visit, A new report suggests that Canadians admitted to hospital on a weekend for emergency medical or surgical care have a slightly higher risk of dying than those with a weekday admission. The study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information found the likelihood of dying for patients admitted on a weekend was 4 per cent higher over all than for patients admitted on a weekday.

The CIHI study did not turn up the “weekend effect” for obstetric, mental health or pediatric patients. Researchers found that those who had emergency surgery had a 7 per cent higher chance of dying if admitted on the weekend, while emergency medical-care patients had a 3 per cent higher risk of death.

The study found that both heart attack and stroke patients waited longer for diagnostic tests on the weekend, but only heart attack patients appeared affected by weekend admissions. They had an 8 per cent higher risk of dying. CIHI says another possible reason for the small but significant weekend effect is hospitals having lower staffing levels than they do on weekdays.

“It is important to keep in mind that the study was only able to analyze the most serious outcome – death,” said Kathleen Morris, director of Health System Analysis and Emerging Issues at CIHI. “Individual hospitals are in the best position to monitor key contributors to successful patient outcomes: appropriate treatments, patient experience and wait times.” The weekend-effect phenomenon isn’t new: researchers in a number of countries have found even higher rates of death linked to Saturday-Sunday admissions, with one recent U.S. study finding urgent care patients having a 15 per cent increased risk of dying when admitted on a weekend.

Each year, there are about 1.25 million admissions to Canadian hospitals and about 75,000 in-hospital deaths among urgent medical and surgical patients. CIHI estimates that about 400 of these deaths may be due to the weekend effect.

Law society votes to reverse faith-based school’s accreditation

B.C. law society votes to reverse faith-based school’s accreditation British Columbia’s lawyers have voted against a controversial, faith-based law school in the province’s Fraser Valley.

Members of the Law Society of B.C. voted 3,210 to 968 in Tuesday’s special general meeting to oppose accreditation for Trinity Western University.

The vote is non-binding but directs the society’s board of directors, known as Benchers, to declare that TWU is not an approved faculty of law for the purposes of the law society’s admissions program.

The special general meeting was the society’s first in 12 years, convened after Victoria-based lawyer Michael Mulligan collected written requests from more than 1,500 members.

In April, Benchers had voted to accredit the proposed law school, which angered critics across Canada who viewed a line in the university’s community covenant that prohibits “sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman” as discriminatory on the basis of sexual orientation.

Under society rules, a special general meeting is required if requested by at least 5 per cent, or roughly 650, of its members. At the Vancouver Convention Centre, Mr. Mulligan told the room that, in his view, the concern is not with the religious views of faculty or students, but with the conduct of the university as an institution.

Barbara Findlay, who refers to herself as a “lesbian lawyer,” said she supports religious freedoms, telling the crowd, “You have every right to believe that I am a sinner. But when your discriminatory beliefs turn into actions that discriminate against someone, that’s where you cross the line.”

Lindsay Lister, president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said it was important to recognize that the debate over the law school is not an “us versus them issue.”

TWU president Bob Kuhn, who has spoken at law societies across Canada defending the school, apologized to the room “for any hurt caused by people who hold themselves out as supporters.”

In all, thousands of law-society members – including 642 in Vancouver – participated in Tuesday’s special general meeting. While a resolution of such a meeting is not binding on the Benchers, members do have the option of requesting a referendum if Benchers have not “substantially implemented” the resolution within a year of its adoption, according to the Legal Profession Act.

The law school would be at the university’s main campus in Langley, B.C., and accept 60 students a year in a three-year program commencing September, 2016, according to TWU’s proposal.

Basic gaming for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft at E3

Back to basic gaming for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft at E3

Facing criticism that their consoles have become more about general entertainment and less about gaming, the biggest players in the video-game industry are launching a full-on offensive to win back their core customer base.

In what has become somewhat of a rarity, the focus of the big three console-makers at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this week was almost exclusively on games. For several years, Sony Corp., Nintendo Co. Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. have used much of their stage time at the video-game industry’s biggest annual trade show to talk about hardware, online stores and, increasingly, non-game features such as video rental services and social networking. But, facing a shortage of appealing titles for the newest generation of consoles, the companies took a different approach this year.

In November of last year, Sony and Microsoft kicked off what is commonly referred to as the eighth generation of gaming consoles with the launch of the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One. Along with the Wii U from Nintendo, the consoles represent the latest reset of the multibillion-dollar video-gaming market, much as new generations of high-definition or 3D TVs tend to kick-start a new cycle of consumer purchases – both of hardware and content.

However, since the launch of the Microsoft and Sony consoles, many gaming fans have complained that there is still a serious dearth of new gaming titles for the consoles – a significant impediment to consumer adoption, especially given that the new consoles can cost more than $500.

Part of the problem is cyclical – it usually takes some time for major studios to build games that can take advantage of the new and improved hardware (which, in the case of the Sony and Microsoft consoles, includes everything from brawnier computer processors to multiple input mechanisms, such as voice recognition and motion control).

But the lack of games comes at a time when both Sony and Microsoft, unlike Nintendo, are attempting to position their consoles not only as gaming machines, but as the hub of all digital entertainment. Indeed, prior to this year’s E3 conference, Microsoft and Sony had spent considerable time promoting the non-gaming entertainment features of their devices, such as movie stores, content-sharing and social networking integration.

This week, the companies behind the consoles sought to change that perception, unleashing a slew of launch announcements and deliberately avoiding much discussion of non-gaming aspects.

As has been the case for years, some of the biggest titles on display at E3 were sequels or spinoffs of tried-and-tested blockbuster franchises. Microsoft announced a new iteration of the massively popular Call Of Duty game and a remastered bundle of its Halo series of titles (ahead of an expected sequel). Sony showed off new games in the Little Big Planet and Far Although most big-budget titles on display at E3 this week were based on existing franchises, there were also various new blockbusters on display, such as the Xbox title Sunset Overdrive, and dozens of independent games that will be available on the Sony and Microsoft digital content stores.

Shootout in downtown Vancouver injures police officer.

Photos from witnesses suggest Paul Dragan ran across the street from his bike shop to grab a coffee at the Starbucks Tuesday morning. Moments later, the 52-year-old owner of the Reckless Bike Stores chain was lying sprawled on his back in front of the coffee shop with a bullet wound in his abdomen, blood pooling on the sidewalk as stunned bystanders attempted to revive him. Witnesses struggled to comprehend what unfolded before their eyes after a gunman fired anywhere from three to five shots outside the coffee shop. The shooter was then seen fleeing on a bike along the city’s seawall to Science World, chased by police as passersby scattered. On the grounds of the popular museum routinely crowded with preschoolers, the suspect opened fire on police, injuring one officer with flying glass when a bullet hit her cruiser, before he was brought down. The suspected shooter and Mr. Dragan were sent to hospital for surgery.

Constable Montague said the officer’s injuries are minor, though he added she’s “very shaken up.” Stunned employees at the Kitsilano location of the Reckless Bike Stores declined to comment but confirmed Mr. Dragan was in the hospital with his wife by his side.

Mr. Dragan’s business partners describe him as a passionate cycling advocate who is well-liked and has great business sense. Jack Becker, who co-founded a small cycling consulting firm along with Mr. Dragan, said the cyclist lived in Nova Scotia before moving to Europe in the 1970s for several years to be a bicycle racer. Since arriving in Vancouver, Mr. Dragan has sat on various municipal boards and helped to stage a global cycling conference in 2012. He has a son who is 11- or 12-years-old, said Mr. Becker.

“He was a good person to talk to to get advice,” said Mr. Becker. “I always found him easy to work with.” Annette O’Shea, executive director of the Yaletown Business Improvement Association, has known Mr. Dragan for about eight years through his work as a member of the BIA’s tourism strategy committee. “He is certainly popular in the neighbourhood,” said Ms. O’Shea. “Everyone knows who he is. He’s always coming up with great ideas about how we can make this place better.”

Adam Hunter was at home in a high-rise near the Davie Street Starbucks when he heard what sounded like an explosion shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday. “I didn’t know it was a gun,” he said. “It was so loud. I was expecting it to be a gas explosion.” Mr. Hunter said he looked out the window and saw a man who looked like a police officer leaning across a blue car parked in front of the shop. Both of his arms were stretched over the car and he was holding a black handgun. Mr. Hunter saw the man fire one shot before he went around the back of the car and out of Mr. Hunter’s line of sight. Nigel Horsley, who lives on the sixth floor above the Starbucks, ran downstairs after hearing four shots. When he emerged, he saw a man he identified as Mr. Dragan lying unmoving on the ground, his skin pale and grey. He seemed to be unconscious, said Mr. Horsley.

Paramedics arrived and began treating the victim.

“They were doing CPR on him so hard I could see his stomach bumping up from the compressions,” said Mr. Hunter. Amber Bouchard came off the SkyTrain at the station across the street from Science World when she saw 10 to 20 armed officers advancing in a line toward the domed facility with their guns drawn.

Melissa Canute said she was walking along the seawall near Science World and the Olympic Village when she heard gunfire in three bursts. She said she didn’t see the man go down, but she watched as stretchers arrived to take people away. The area around Science World and the Main St. SkyTrain station was quickly cordoned off and the nearby Creekside Community Centre was put on lockdown. Children hanging out the windows from a departing school bus yelled to a reporter that they were from Chilliwack and had been locked down in the museum. There have been a recent series of shootings in the Vancouver area, raising questions about violence in Canada’s third largest city. Over the past weekend, two men were shot – one fatally. In one incident, 28-year-old Mila Deakin, the daughter of the former TV series Real Housewives of Vancouver star Jody Claman, was shot in the shoulder. Despite recent violent incidents, Constable Montague said “it was a bit of a leap” to say that violent crime is on the rise in Vancouver. “It is unfortunate that we’ve had a large number of shootings in a short period of time, but I really don’t think there’s a need for the public to really be overly concerned at this point because of these few unfortunate incidents.” Because police discharged firearms, the Independent Investigations Office of B.C is looklng into whether the actions of officers were justified in the case.

Ex-Vision TV head suing Moses Znaimer's ZoomerMedia

TV head suing Moses Znaimer's ZoomerMedia, the mini-media empire of Toronto television entrepreneur Moses Znaimer, is facing a lawsuit from the former chief executive officer of its religious specialty channel, Vision TV, who is demanding more than $900,000 in severance and damages for “mental and emotional distress.”

Bill Roberts, now 61, had been at the helm of Vision for a decade when ZoomerMedia bought it in 2010 for $25-million from the charity that owned it. He says in court documents that after initially being asked to stay on with a salary of about $250,000 a year, the two sides couldn’t agree on new terms and he was terminated in 2012.

But when he was let go, he alleges, ZoomerMedia still owed him two years’ pay in severance and a paid six-month sabbatical – provisions he says the company agreed to when it took over his contract at Vision.

Mr. Roberts, an industry veteran who previously served as managing director of TV Ontario, also alleges that after he was told he was being terminated by ZoomerMedia in March, 2012, he had to stay on during a “working notice” period until October. But during this period, he alleges, he was required to provide a “weekly written report” on his activities, assigned an office away from other staff and excluded from aspects of the television operation.

In an interview, Mr. Roberts was reluctant to go into further detail, but said he found the experience “startling” after his career in broadcasting, and highly stressful. “I felt like I was being left to twist in the wind.” In his statement of claim, filed in 2012, Mr. Roberts is asking for $490,000 in severance, $150,000 in lieu of the sabbatical, $100,000 in “bad faith damages,” $100,000 in “aggravated damages” and $100,000 for “the intentional infliction of mental distress or punitive damages.”

Around August, 2011, Mr. Roberts says he met with Mr. Znaimer to discuss the terms of extending his employment past his contract’s October 2011 expiry date. In court documents, Mr. Roberts says he had his lawyer draw up a proposal to carry on, but that ZoomerMedia balked at paying for the sabbatical. By January, 2012, Mr. Roberts’ lawyer was threatening to sue. Mr. Roberts alleges that, at a private meeting, Mr. Znaimer urged him not to sue, saying ZoomerMedia “was in the midst of some financial issues which would be adversely impacted.”

The two sides are due in court again in October, when a lawyer for ZoomerMedia is seeking to strike out parts of Mr. Roberts’ statement of claim that refer to settlement talks – talks that ZoomerMedia argues should have been kept confidential. The company is controlled by Mr. Znaimer’s Olympus Management Ltd., which owns 64.3 per cent of the common shares. Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. owns 26.9 per cent, with 9 per cent of shares widely held.

Toronto takes new role on subway expansion after sparring with TTC

Toronto’s city planning department is taking over and broadening the environmental assessment for the Scarborough subway extension after “difficult and quite contentious discussions” with the TTC, leaving the transit agency to focus on construction.

The shakeup in how transit is planned and built in the city will be the model for future projects, according to Toronto Transit Commission chief executive Andy Byford.

Chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat characterized the new approach as the difference between simply “laying down infrastructure” and using transit to create “great thriving prosperous places.” The shift comes after concern on the part of some city staff that the TTC was moving ahead too quickly amid the uncertainty – with two of the five major mayoral candidates vowing to revert to the original plan for light rail – that continues to surround the Scarborough transit plan. This latest twist in Scarborough, which should not affect the work’s overall timelines, also offers a rare glimpse into the project. Progress, which is still at a very preliminary stage, had been delayed by the dust-up over division of responsibilities. Now that that issue has been settled, a request for proposals for initial engineering work is expected to go out this week. The decision to give city planning the lead on the EA – which will include determining the route and where and how many stations there will be – came after sharp differences of opinion between that department and the TTC over how best to proceed with the project.

“They were difficult and quite contentious discussions,” said Mr. Byford, who acknowledged that not everyone on his team was pleased to see city planning assume the new role.

“I have to see the bigger picture. And it seems to me that the city does have a point in saying you can’t just look at projects as purely transit projects, you’ve got to look at what the wider implications for the city are. I’ll be honest with you, there’s also a bit of me that says we’ve got quite enough on our plate – and that is the understatement of the year.” “This change will ensure that we’re integrating our considerations for new lines into a network-based approach and also integrating the transit alignment policies with our city-building policies around densification and transformation of urban environment.”

Rapid transit, particularly in Scarborough, has shaped up as a key election issue in this fall’s mayoral election. Light-rail supporters say that form of transit is cheaper, faster to build and serves more people. Subway boosters insist underground transit is best and prefer to frame the debate as one that has been settled.

Some high-ranking transit officials will admit privately that the subway extension is far from a sure thing, with one saying it would likely be the next city council that decides on the project’s future. Another pegged its chances at “60-40 or 75-25.” The long-debated project continues to face hurdles, among them that the original legal agreement for an LRT in Scarborough remains in force. In a recent e-mail, Metrolinx spokeswoman Anne Marie Aikins said that changing that agreement is an ongoing process. Among the difficulties are negotiations over how to divvy up sunk costs.

Subway supporters also will have to win a series of big-dollar funding votes at council as the project proceeds over the next few years. If the next mayor is a supporter of the project, that mandate will help carry those votes. But a lot of work remains before the proverbial shovels can go in the ground.

BMO on Canada's economy

BMO on Canada's economy: 'There’s Alberta, then there’s everyone else',As Bank of Montreal puts it, there’s Alberta and then the ROC where the economy’s concerned.

Everyone knows that the province’s economy is on fire, and that’s its forecast to stay that way, but BMO economists today have fresh numbers to back up a research note titled “There’s Alberta, then there’s everyone else.” Looking deeper into last Friday’s jobs numbers, BMO’s Benjamin Reitzes says the Statistics Canada report “reinforced that the Alberta economy is in a league of its own.”

Employment in Alberta, home to Canada’s oil industry, has climbed 3.2 per cent over the course of a year, compared to just 0.1 per cent for the rest of Canada.

“That’s +71,200 jobs for Alberta and $14,300 for the rest of the country – note that Alberta accounts for just over 11 per cent of the country’s population,” Mr. Reitzes said. “Six of 10 provinces saw employment drop below year-ago levels, including all five east of Ontario,” he added. “Alberta’s energy sector continues to suck in workers, while the rest of Canada battles slowing domestic demand and the legacy of a strong loonie and weak productivity.”

Separately, as The Globe and Mail's Tara Perkins reports today, Calgary's housing market is red hot. So, as BMO's Sal Guatieri puts it, if you're looking for a new condo, good luck. The latest projections from Royal Bank of Canada call for economic expansion of 3.7 per cent this year and 3.5 per cent in 2015, with employment levels climbing 2.3 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively, and a jobless rate of 4.3 per cent and then just 4 per cent.