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Around
Nunavik
May
12, 2006
Quebec health records
going digital
Quebec's health department
plans to spend $547 million to digitize provincial medical records by 2011.
A doctor will be able to
log on to patients' records anywhere in Quebec when the digitalization is finished.
Each file on record will have information identifying the patient and listing
prescriptions, test results and names of other health professionals who have
treated the patient.
Patients will be asked
to give their consent to participate - and will have a personal password which
must also be typed in to access the system.
The project will receive
$303 million in federal funds and $244 million from Quebec, making this the
largest healthcare information technology modernization effort ever undertaken
in Canada.
In a press conference earlier
this month, health minister Philippe Couillard said "it would be beneficial
to have the whole medical record together to avoid prescribing conflicting medications,
which can result in hospitalization."
Couillard said new hospitals
will "probably be all paperless."
Building the digital health
network will result in an estimated $375 million in contracts for Quebec companies.
May
12, 2006
New collective agreement
for Raglan workers
Last week, Falconbridge
Ltd. and the United Steelworkers of America reached a tentative agreement to
renew the collective agreement of workers at Nunavik's Raglan Mine.
A news release from the
company says it is expected that employees will vote on the agreement by May
26. Both the company and union bargaining teams are unanimously recommending
the tentative agreement.
Details of the agreement
will be released once it has been ratified.
Shares in Falconbridge
rose about two per cent Friday after the deal with the union was announced.
In Friday's trading on
the Toronto stock market, the company's shares were up 71 cents, or 1.6 per
cent, at $44.83.
May
5, 2006
Quebec’s parole system to change in 2007
A year from now, victims of violent crime will know when their assailants come up for parole and have a chance to say what they think about their release.
These are among the sweeping changes to Quebec’s parole board which will come into effect next February.
Quebec’s public security minister Jacques Dupuis announced the series of changes last week, and said that $22 million has been set aside to implement these changes.
The overall idea behind these changes, Dupuis told journalists, is to restore public confidence in Quebec’s corrections system.
Under the new parole system:
- All new inmates will undergo an intake evaluation to determine things such as whether they’re potentially violent, whether they have drug or alcohol addictions, or whether they’re mentally ill;
- A single file with all inmate information will be accessible on line in a datebase shared to police, corrections officials and staff, probation officers and, in some cases, to community groups;
- Inmates serving sentences longer than six months must seek parole or even a temporary absence through the parole board rather than through the prison directors;
- Victims will be notified when their assailants are eligible for parole, when the hearing will be held, and what the release date will be;
- Victims will be allowed to send written reports for parole officials to consider.
There will be more emphasis on rehabilitation, Dupuis said, because sooner or later, all inmates are released. Inmates need to know to respect the law when they return to life outside of jail, he said.
The new pot of money will also be used to hire 90 full-time and 16 part-time staff to carry out the new evaluations and follow-ups.
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