Mental-health patients dying young

Mental-health patients dying young http://www.healthzone.ca/health/mindmood/mentalhealth/article/931141–mental-health-patients-dying-young?bn=1 Affordable housing advocate Linda Chamberlain knows eight people with mental illness who have died recently. But she’s convinced it wasn’t mental-health issues that killed them. “I can’t tell you how many people are dying at 40 from heart attacks due to diabetes and not proper nutrition,” says Chamberlain, 61, “They’re not eating properly and they’re eating the wrong food,” “Some of these medications are giving people diabetes,” she says. If you apply those rates to Statistics Canada mortality figures, people with serious mental illness account for the majority of suicides in Canada — 3,240 out of 3,512 annual deaths — but also a tremendous portion of people dying from cardiovascular disease, as much as 46,000 out of about 69,000 deaths. There many possible reasons for this, including weight gain caused by antipsychotic medication and lifestyle factors including smoking, lack of exercise and diet.

Prince The Dog Returns Home After 5 Years, Finds Owner Myrna Carillo’s New House

Prince The Dog Returns Home After 5 Years, Finds Owner Myrna Carillo’s New House If you move four times in five years, it’s hard enough for the mail to find you, let alone a dog. But that’s just what one smart Shih Tzu did this past week. According to NBC News, Myrna Carillo lost her beloved dog Prince over five years ago in California. Since then, she has married, had two boys… and moved four times. And yet, somehow Prince showed up on her doorstep last week. Myrna immediately recognized the furry dog, and more impressively, the dog recognized her. Prince is already bonding with Myrna’s sons, and is reacquainting himself with his rediscovered family

Settlement agencies shocked by gag order

Settlement agencies shocked by gag order “Immigrant service agencies were horrified when they got a government email last week banning them from discussing recent federal funding cuts that may kill some of them — a memo Citizenship and Immigration Canada now says was all a big mistake. Members of the York South-Weston Local Immigration Partnership (LIP), which coordinates newcomer programs to reduce duplication of services, had planned to discuss the $53 million funding cuts at its Jan. 13 meeting. The 26 member organizations were shocked to receive a mass email from a CIC official ordering them to remove the topic from the agenda.”

[The Star] The casualties of Rob Ford’s war

[The Star] The casualties of Rob Ford’s war 🙁 good summary on the damage Rob Ford is already doing to our communities. He said there would be no tax increases and no cuts in service; hell, he guaranteed it. What are these things? Cuts and increases. He suggests that refugees stay in motels instead of shelters. He has snatched food from their mouths. There are meals available in shelter, but not in motels; apparently, the mayor did not know. I suppose some refugees will be Asian. The mayor is on record as having said those people work like dogs; maybe he thinks they can get by on kibble. The mayor has declared a war on people who read books, and a war on people who pay rent, and a war on people who work shift for a living, and a war on those come here for a better life. And […]

Szeto Wah, Political Activist in Hong Kong, Dies at 79

Szeto Wah, Political Activist in Hong Kong, Dies at 79 Szeto Wah, a Hong Kong union leader and critic of British colonial rule who became an implacable critic of the Chinese Communist Party after the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989, died on Sunday after a long struggle with lung cancer. He was 79. …. 🙁 .. I remember hearing him speak at rallies when I was young.. I remember shaking his hand.. Hong Kong will miss him 🙁

Orphaned Chinese brothers face separation

Orphaned Chinese brothers face separation Gao Zhi Xiang doesn’t know how to break the news to his 8-year-old brother, Zhi Xin, when the day comes for his deportation. The 19-year-old, who arrived in Toronto last year on a visitor’s visa from China to see their dying mother, is faced with the difficult decision of leaving his orphaned brother, a permanent resident in Canada, to the care of Children’s Aid.

Hope fades for Toronto student facing deportation

Hope fades for Toronto student facing deportation An 18-year-old Toronto high school student who fled Mexico for Canada three years ago is “feeling very, very alone” after news Thursday that he will be deported to Mexico on New Year’s Day. Daniel Garcia, a Grade 11 student at Parkdale Collegiate Institute, will be sent back to his home country after attempts to claim refugee status in Canada failed.