The Sunday Edition for April 26, 2020
Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright:
A COVID-19 confinement chronicle: week six — Michael's essay on the Nova Scotia tragedy: "There is no second-guessing the kind of slaughter that will forever mark a little town of 100 people called Portapique. We can only stay in our confinement and think about them and weep for them."
Canada's for-profit model of long-term care has failed the elderly, says leading expert: TK The grievous toll that COVID-19 has taken in long-term care facilities has revealed one of the most glaring inadequacies in eldercare in Canada. York University's Pat Armstrong, one of Canada's leading experts on eldercare, argues that years of moving toward for-profit care homes has meant worsening labour conditions for workers and poorer quality of life for seniors who live in them. She tells Michael Enright about what other countries are doing better and what things could be like here if we put eldercare at the top of our healthcare agenda.
Two Nova Scotians reflect on an unthinkable tragedy: All week, Nova Scotians have been struggling to come to grips with last week's horrors — ricocheting from shock at the gunman's hateful rampage to fury and anguish at the terrible aftermath. For two Nova Scotians, Truro city councillor Cathy Hinton and book publisher Bruce Walsh, the massacre cut very close to home.
Pandemic crisis management where crisis is a constant: It's hard enough for most of us to shelter in place and maintain physical distancing. It's that much harder for people who don't have a shelter to call their own — and who take refuge in crowded homeless shelters. Wendy Muckle has been working with Ottawa's homeless population for decades, and has witnessed its struggles through AIDS, tuberculosis, SARS, H1N1, and for the last several years, opioids. The work is even harder now. Alisa Siegel brings that story in a documentary called Taking Care of All of Us.
The what, how and why of reforming the WHO: Even people who deplore Donald Trump's decision to withdraw funding for the World Health Organization still think there's plenty of grounds for criticizing the WHO. Amir Attaran is a professor in the Faculty of Law and School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. He has worked extensively with the WHO and has tough words for it, for Trump's scapegoating of it, and for Canada's own public health response to the pandemic.
Mending the world one torn garment at a time: Until recently, Aparita Bhandari was wary of picking up a sewing needle. Too many failed attempts to repair ripped clothes — a sari, skirt or pair of jeans — haunted her. But then she discovered visible mending. It's inspiring people to reconsider torn garments, and to find new, even celebratory, ways to mend them.Her documentary is called A World To Mend.
A Canadian Nobel laureate's quest to build a better ventilator: If you were looking for someone to design a simpler, easier-to-produce ventilator, you might not immediately think of an astrophysicist. But that's just what Arthur McDonald is doing. He's a Queens University professor emeritus who was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics, and he's part of an international team working at warp speed to meet the demand for more ventilators.
Remembering Jean Little: One of Canada's best-loved and most celebrated children's authors, Jean Little, died earlier this month at the age of 88. When she was in her 60s, she began authoring a remarkable story in her own life — adopting her great niece and nephew with her sister. We'll replay Cate Cochran's 2014 documentary about that family, Ours To Keep.
Mail: More on foreign-trained doctors
Music this week by: the Rankin Family, Suzie Leblanc, Angela Hewitt, Natalie McMaster, Symphony Nova Scotia.
