Diagnose your health problems using beer.

More people are turning to the internet for self-diagnosis of health problems. This is one of the great benefits of the technological marvel that is the world wide web, and not only do I fully support it but I wish to contribute myself.

This is why I am sharing a system I developed to accurately pin-point your health problems using a cheap and easily accessible tool: BEER.

This is how it works: your body is a complex mechanism that processes inputs to generate energy and provide the nutrients that your body needs to operate, while expelling anything that is not needed. If your body is not operating effectively, it will expel more of one thing or less of another, and there will be tell-tale signs of this in the colour of your pee. Stick with me here ...

To take advantage of this underrated bodily function, I have developed the Perfect Urine Beer Scale (PUBS). Using PUBS, you can tell what ails you simply by comparing the colour of your pee to the colour of an ale from your local beer store.

The PUBS^© diagnosis

If your pee looks like: COORS LIGHT

Diagnosis: The pale colour indicates that you are lacking vitamins and minerals in your diet. Go buy yourself some fruits and vegetables for a change. If your diet consists mainly of Coors Light and empty carbs, your urine will look like Coors Light. Coincidentally, your pee and Coors Light also probably taste the same.




If your pee looks like: KOKANEE

Diagnosis: You are healthy. This is a normal colour, which means that your body is operating normally so you can cancel your doctor's appointment. There is no need for you to waste his time and yours with a needless check-up when you can tell just by looking in the toilet bowl that you're in perfect health.


If your pee looks like: RICKARD'S RED

Diagnosis: The red tinge is a result of blood in your urine. You had better sit down for this part ... you are dying of cancer. If you haven't caught it by the time you start to pee blood then it is probably way too late. You shouldn't have cancelled that doctor's appointment last year. What were you thinking?


 

If your pee looks like: SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN

Diagnosis: This is darker than normal which indicates that you are dehydrated. The solution is to drink more fluids. No, NO, not BEER. I mean something besides beer. Get a glass of water or juice or something like that.


If your pee looks like: NEWCASTLE

Diagnosis: You are extremely dehydrated. What the hell were you doing? Never mind ... just find a cool room, perhaps a rec room in the basement, drink water and keep drinking until your pee returns to normal. Do it now, before you pass out and require an IV drip.




If you pee looks like: HOEGAARDEN

Diagnosis: The cloudy appearance is due to a kidney infection called pyelonephritis. It sounds bad, but don't worry, it is treatable with antibiotics although severe cases may require hospitalization.

Or you may have cataracts. Better get your eyes checked too.


If your pee looks like: GUINNESS

Diagnosis: You are a zombie. That is all you need to know.











Disclaimer: The accuracy of the PUBS^© diagnosis may be compromised by eating Doritos chips with artificial colouring, especially Spicy Chipotle BBQ. Also, everything else may be grievously incorrect.

"There's so much duplication"

I was sitting in a waiting room recently, and struck up a conversation with the person sitting beside me. Just small talk at first ... "so, where do you work?"

"Manitoba Mental Health"

I don't recall the exact name of the organization, but it was something like that. Nor do I recall the name of the lady with whom I was speaking, and even if I did I would not tell you because I do not want to get her in trouble. In any case, her answer interested me because I knew nothing of this organization. So I asked her: "What does this organization do?"

"We provide support, counseling, assistance finding employment and that sort of thing. There is so much duplication."

"Pardon?"

"There is so much duplication. You wouldn't believe how many organizations do the same thing we do."

She just threw that out there, completely unsolicited. "There is so much duplication." That she would think to include that statement in casual conversation about her place of work tells me that it's really a significant factor. Perhaps something that frustrates her or limits her sense of accomplishment at work.

That led to a conversation about why there is so much duplication. The consensus was that there are certain areas that, for reasons of optics, are immune to cutbacks. Like police services at the municipal level, health services at the provincial level are nigh impossible to cut. They are, however, extremely easy to increase. Announcing a new program for mental health services or anything else is good PR. Thus, with new programs being added all the time and no old programs getting cut, duplication arises.

This squares with something I heard from a friend who used to work in the Finance department on Broadway. He said that prior to any budget, proposals would be made to trim one thing or another in the area of health care and they were all systematically rejected. This was something that my friend found frustrating and limited his sense of accomplishment at work.

What is stopping the current NDP administration from cutting some of these programs? In theory, the NDP should be able to trim some things without fear the opposition PCs will criticize them for it. The PCs ought to understand the necessity of cutting duplication, and are not really in a position to criticize modest health care cuts after their last experience in power.

The problem (I think) is that the NDP hammered the PCs relentlessly in previous elections for health care cuts, and it worked too well. This is their biggest weapon: the PCs are the party of cutting health care and the NDP are not. They do not want to lose that advantage. They don't want the PCs to be able to say "you cut health care too" the next time the NDP attacks the PCs in an election campaign.

*****

In a Twitter discussion today, reporter Dan Lett asked pundit Luc Lewandoski to explain "What part of health and education is non-core?" It's not really a fair question. Mental health services are a "core" service, for example, but that doesn't mean it can't safely be trimmed or consolidated without impacting the final product.

Any suggestion that budgets should be trimmed are immediately countered by a government MLA with simplistic arguments about "core" services being cut, as if there is no grey area. The fact is that there is probably a great deal of room for budget trimming, but you need to be familiar with the organizations to know what those are.

I never knew anything about mental health services until recently -- I don't use mental health services because I still cling to the belief that I'm mentally stable and do not require urgent medical attention -- but it seems everybody has some kind of story about how a government agency or department is wasting time or money. All of this knowledge needs to be harnessed, and the government needs to be fearless in attacking these areas of waste and excess if it ever hopes to get its spending under control.

Quick Care Clinics

Winnipeg's first Quick Care Clinic opened recently at 363 McGregor Street. On my way to work this morning, I spied another one opening up in the freshly re-clad IC Computing building on St.Mary's near Marion.

(It looks better now) pic: Google maps

This would be the St.Boniface location, of the 8 planned for Manitoba. It's an easily accessible location and occupies a building that has been vacant for a year or two, which is nice to see.


Of the McGregor location, our Minister of Health, Theresa Oswald, declared "This new clinic is about offering patients choice."

Part of us wonders how much choice these new clinics really add. There are, of course, medical clinics already scattered throughout the city. They are privately owned and staffed by doctors who can perform all of the same services that the new Quick Care Clinics provide and more. Is this just a case of the government branching out into the territory of private enterprise and cannibalizing their business?

The big draw seems to be the extended hours: open until 9:00 pm weekdays and 5:00 pm on weekends and holidays. In that regard it will be better than most private clinics, including the one in my neighbourhood, which is due to get a new QCC sometime in the near future.

In theory, the clinics should be cheaper because they are staffed by registered nurses and nurse practitioners instead of doctors. Nurses are well paid, but the doctors who work in walk-in clinics get paid based on how many patients they push through the gates every day, not an annual salary. This may result in a rushed experience for some people, and perhaps that's another advantage of the new clinics -- the salaried nurses may take a little more time mending the burnt hand you got experimenting with deep-frying marshmallows.

The concept of a nurse practitioner clinic is not new in Manitoba. Internet pharmacy mogul Darren Jorgenson opened the Four Rivers Medical Clinic in 2010 to perform basic medical care for a fee. This no doubt pissed off the folks on Broadway and is very likely the impetus for the new Quick Care Clinics that you see now.

So if these clinics have longer hours and cheaper health care providers, it's all good, right? Well, equipping and staffing the clinics themselves will be costly. How do you tell if the increased "choice" offsets the increased cost to taxpayers? As well, this could also have a negative effect on certain actual medical clinics. If all the people with easily treatable wounds and coughs go to the QCCs, the actual clinics will be left with fewer and more complicated patients. With fewer people going through, and more time spent per treatment, profits will drop.

I have to wonder, for example, what might become of the small Lang Medical Clinic when the new St.Mary's Quick Care Clinic opens up only one block away. The people in the area might have gained a nurse practitioner, but lost a doctor.

Buildings, brain damage and food

Acid wash architecture

There has been a small kerfuffle about what to do with the old YWG airport terminal now that the fancy-pants James Richardson International terminal is opening. Heritage advocates are crying out for somebody to save it, because it is an excellent example of mid-century modernist architecture. That may be, but modernist architecture happens to be the acid wash jeans of the architecture world. Nobody, for example, would ever say “Wait! Don’t throw out those parachute pants -- they’re still perfectly good!”

Modernism ranges from the bland and block-ish, like our terminal, to the Jetson-ish stylings of the Winnipeg Clinic building, where the designers gambled on the look of the future and lost. But looks aside, the terminal building has a couple of other knocks against it: size and location. It is big and expensive to maintain, and it’s located (obviously) at an airport, which drastically limits potential uses, as does the purpose-built interior that would require massive renovations for almost any other use.

Heritage advocates should pick their fights. We have a hard enough time preserving our turn of the century classics in the exchange district to be distracted by this. If a legitimate proposal comes forward that doesn’t require a bundle of government money, then fine .. but otherwise take one last good look and say good bye.

*****

Blog action day

Apparently today was blog action day. Apparently this year’s subject was food. I do not have anything to contribute because (and this is true) I was busy building a garden. A small raised vegetable garden for next summer. Plus I completely forgot that it was blog action day. That was a factor too.

Since I have failed you, here are a couple of other local Blog Action Day blogs that are worth reading: Conceited Jerk & One Man Committee

*****

Brain damage in two languages

I read that bilingualism prolonged cognitive function in people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Brain scans showed that “bilingual patients had twice as much atrophy” when diagnosed as unilingual patients, leading to the conclusion that speaking two languages helps you overcome brain damage from the disease. That is one possibility, but I think the researchers are missing the obvious conclusion: that speaking French causes brain damage.

*****

Late addition: Ramblin' Dan

I feel I'm not offering you enough with this post, so here is a video for you ... local artist, prolific songwriter, and old buddy of mine "Rambling" Dan Frechette, with a reggae-ish tune recorded at the Park Theatre a couple weeks ago:



Check out Dan's YouTube page for more, or better yet: go pick up one of his albums!

Health, wellness, and blasphemy

I am feeling very confined. My wife has banished me to the office, forcing me to kill time by writing on this stupid blog. I suppose I could be doing my taxes, but on a Friday night? No. I don't think so. I started drinking three hours ago already.

The "man" is also beating me down. The man being the government of our province. First, they approve a $260 million dollar bird-killing factory, which has caused the me to lose sleep. Poor little feathery creatures. Then, they submitted a budget that spends $5 billion on health care, yet still doesn't cover the experimental treatment for keeping my finger nails from growing so fast. And now, this. Come on, man. Don't make me take off my copper underwear! It gives me the support I need, and only recently broke in to fit me perfectly!

****

On another note, I shall give you some health advice, because I am an expert. I am an expert because I say I am, and because I have a master's degree*.

Drink. Specifically, drink the following:

A glass of red wine, to lower your cholesterol, followed up by a pint of ale to make your bones strong:

A beer a day could keep brittle bones at bay. That's because beer is rich in silicon, an element that has been linked to bone health. But what type of beer should you drink? ... lighter-coloured beers made from pale malted barley and hops, such as pale ales, are richest in silicon, while low-alcohol beers contain the least, along with stouts, porters and wheat beers.

But don't put away the stout just yet! You need that too to prevent heart attacks.

Feeling good yet? Good. But you're not done: you also need to grab six or more cups of coffee to keep yourself alert and also prevent Parkinson's disease, diabetes and cancer.

That's my typical morning anyways so I should be doing OK, except for those damn fingernails.

*in economics.

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If you're into blasphemy, these guys might be for you ... I found out about them here and had to check them out, from curiosity. This music isn't really my bag, but the song gets better as it goes on. You can pick up some influences from Metallica, and Avril Lavigne. That last one might be my imagination.

A message to my American friends

Health care reform is one of those topics -- like global warming -- where rational debate is as common as a Panamanian golden frog. Any discussion almost invariably degenerates into ideology-driven exaggeration and fear mongering. I have seen the absurdity of the Canadian debate, and I think I can help add some perspective for my American friends.

To some in Canada, health care is a sacred enterprise that must not be tampered with. Any mention of reform immediately sends the left-wingers into a tizzy. They wave their arms and yammer on about the evils of the U.S. system and how only rich people will be able to get x-rays while the rest of us will have to sit at home dying of easily preventable maladies.

I see the same thing happening in the U.S. right now in response to Obama's health care reform plan. Republicans are comparing it to the Canadian system, and going on about how over-paid bureaucrats will decide if you're worthy of being treated. Sarah Palin, God bless her screwed up little soul, took the hyperbole to a whole new level with her talk of "death panels". ... I don't even think North Korea's health care system has death panels.

Now, I don't know the details of the Obama proposal, but I do know this: you in the U.S. do not want the Canadian system (trust me), but you will never get the Canadian system so there is no need to be afraid of it. Just like how we in Canada will never have to worry about living with the evil U.S. system, and thus have no reason to be afraid of it, or even talk about it. The U.S. and Canadian systems are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Any comparison between the two is pointless. Let me illustrate:

What you have to realize is that there is a whole world of options between the two. Private delivery of health care and universal health care are not mutually exclusive. Private insurance can exist in a publicly administered system. There are all kinds of possibilities.

Australia, for example, has universal health care and private insurance. Health care is provided by government institutions and private companies. You could go all over the world and find many other variations, many (perhaps most) of which include some form of universal health care.

Both the U.S. and Canadian systems, while completely different, are deeply flawed. They are also among the most expensive in the world. (One report that I read claimed that they are in fact the two costliest health care systems -- U.S. first, Canada second.) Thus both systems are in desperate need of change. You should not let opponents of change paralyze discussion of reform with their ideological hyperventilating. Open your minds and engage in an informed debate.

And as a person who is generally conservative, I don't mind telling you that universal health care is a good thing. Just don't do it like we do it.

Buenos Cinqo de Mayo, Amigos

Happy fifth of May. They call it "May" because the trees may sprout leaves sometime this month. Did a giant volcano explode somewhere that I don't know about?

Anyhow ... a couple of quick local thoughts for the morning:

Trouble in Ham Town
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Looks like it will be another summer of accidental hog barn fires ...


A Natural Fit

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority is starting up a magazine. Sure ... why not? Now we have public agencies in the shopping mall/real estate and magazine businesses. You have to diversify to survive in today's economy, you know.

In related news, Manitoba Hydro has bought a 2% stake in Chrysler Corp., and MLCC is starting up a high school theater company.

Godspeed You! Nurses Union

Back in March '08 around the time the Nurses signed their peachy new inflationary contract, Juanita Smith, a nurse, said the following:

"You're constantly worried you're going to make a mistake-- that you're going to give the wrong dose, you're going to miss something, you're going to miss an order that can have repercussions, that somebody waiting in emergency, something is going to happen to them while they're waiting," (*)

7 months later:

The emergency room where Brian Sinclair died after waiting 34 hours for medical help has one of the worst staff shortages in the city... the Health Sciences Centre ER is short close to 13 full-time nurses -- 19 per cent of its regular nursing staff. (*)

Meanwhile, the nurses have received two more 5% raises in Oct since getting their big raise in March. You can't expect giant raises to solve the problem overnight, but they will help eventually, right Maureen Hancharyk, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union?:

"it's not going to fix the nursing shortage" (*)

Or, maybe this is one of those things that you can't solve by throwing money at it. Like most things. Mr.Doer.

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This is what I'm going to play for the kiddies on Halloween night:

Don't get sick: strike looming

There was an odd little article in the Freep today:

The province issued a warning to doctors and hospitals this week to do what they can to reduce the number of patients in beds or requiring surgery in the event contact talks with Manitoba nurses break down ... as a precaution to ensure patient safety.

You can do your part too: if you were planning a heart attack or brain aneurism for next week, you might want to post pone it ... to ensure your safety.

So what's with this work action? Is this just a natural part of the nurses union's four-year menstral cycle? Actually ... it's all about the money:

Maureen Hancharyk, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, said the province is not offering nurses a competitive wage and new graduates are being swayed by higher pay and better benefits from other provinces like Saskatchewan.

..

Terry Goertzen, assistant deputy minister for Manitoba Health workforce, said the province has offered nurses a 9.6 per cent pay increase over two years and that Manitoba nurses have the fourth highest wages in the country. Hancharyk said that's not competitive enough and that Manitoba nurses are actually sixth in the country in terms of pay [link]

What? A raise of only twice the rate of inflation? That's not right ... And gosh darnit, our nurses deserve to be the highest paid in the country, even if our cost of living is higher than only 3 other provinces.

I don't know if you picked up on the sarcasm or not, but what I'm trying to say is our health care expenses are spiraling out of control (at what, 40+% of the provincial budget now? I'm too lazy to look it up) and over-paying our nurses isn't helping. What might help is not spending money on crap like this:

..

But what about the staff shortage, and our poor over-worked nurses? I'll leave it to the Black Rod to explain that one.

h/t: PITT