The medications that cure nearly 90 per cent of hepatitis C patients but come with wallet-busting prices have another downside, a report by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices in the United States has found. In its quarterly report, it identified 1,582 cases in which direct-acting antiviral drugs for hepatitis C, such as Sovaldi and Harvoni, reactivated […]
Toronto’s Michael Garron Hospital is launching an anti-bullying program for its employees to mark Bell Let’s Talk Day this week. “Within nursing and within the medical profession, there are environmental and structural mechanisms that make it very easy for people to bully one another,” says Christine Devine, a wellness specialist at the hospital. Bullying can […]
A new study on prescribing patterns for young Ontarians with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is raising concerns about potentially inappropriate or unnecessary treatments in light of the significant numbers who are taking antipsychotic drugs. In 2011, 5.4 per cent of Ontarians between the ages of one and 24 had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a study […]
Pressure mounts on pension industry to manage longevity risk.
By the end of January, there will be enough new retirees to fill the Air Canada Centre, Jean-Philippe Provost, senior partner and wealth business leader at Mercer, said at an event in Toronto today. Currently, 5,000 Canadian workers retire each week, a number expected to jump to 8,000 by 2020. While retirees can expect to live, on average, […]
In 2007, the golf industry looked strong, with Tiger Woods winning his 13th major championship and thousands of courses dotting the United States. That year, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System got in on the action when it bought retailer Golf Town Canada Inc. for $240 million. Nine years later, the company and its U.S. […]
Some Japanese employees are literally working themselves to death. With hundreds of people succumbing to punishing overtime hours each year, the deaths are common enough to have their own terminology. Karoshi refers to fatal strokes, heart attacks or cerebral hemorrhage, while karojisatsu relates to suicide. And if their families can link the deaths to brutal […]
Several Quebec municipalities, including Laval and Montreal, have suspended indexation on retirees’ pension plans, effective Jan. 1, 2017. Many defined benefit pensions plans provide indexation on an annual basis to cover the rising costs of living. The change is in accordance with Law 15, which was passed in 2014, that required municipalities to stop indexation for future service […]
In December, Benefits Canada reported that nine associations representing health-care providers are urging the federal government to leave private health and dental insurance as non-taxable benefits. The possibility of taxing these benefits was raised late last year, when the government’s report on federal tax expenditures calculated that doing so would add $2.9 billion to the federal […]
Medical costs for group benefits plans will jump eight per cent in 2017, Aon Hewitt predicts. The number includes a 1.9 per cent spike in the general inflation rate, leaving a 6.1 net increase for medical costs. The jump is largely due to increasingly expensive specialty drugs, as well as Canada’s aging population. “Employers [are] not only […]