Russia-Ukraine war: Russian soldiers dead, injured in nuclear power plant 'event'
19 Jul, 2022 


news.com.au
By Benedict Brook

Several Russian soldiers occupying a Ukrainian nuclear power station have died following an unexplained "event" at the plant, the region's mayor has claimed.

Some of the troops "were so scared they ran around the station in a panic," the exiled mayor of the city of Enerhodar in southern Ukraine, Dmytro Orlov said.

A Kyiv news site has reported that Russian troops took passes from staff at the plant and "violated safety rules".

Enerhodar is the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such plant in Europe which is responsible for one-fifth of Ukraine's energy needs.

The plant was seized by advancing Russian forces on March 4.

Under Russian control, it continues to generate electricity. However, there are reports that it is also being used as a weapons store, with several rocket launchers moved to the station's grounds on the banks of the strategically important Dnipro River.

Kyiv controls the northern bank of the Dnipro, opposite the power station, including the region's main centre of Zaporizhzhia and the smaller city of Nikopol.

Keep up to date with the day's biggest storiesSign up to our daily curated newsletter for the day's top stories straight to your inbox.
SIGN UP
By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
I’m not interested in Top News Stories newsletter. Please don’t show me this again.

Unexplained 'event'

The Ukrainian Government has said Russian forces are using weapons based at the plant to bomb cities across the waterway.

On Monday, Mayor Orlov took to social media site Telegram to say that an "event" had occurred at the power station but the details were unclear.

"What is known for sure [is that] in the afternoon nine soldiers of the terrorist country (Russia) were urgently delivered to the city hospital with injuries of varying degrees of severity. d on an outpatient basis, some are hospitalised. One of them in serious condition – in intensive care," he wrote.

"There are also dead people, but we cannot name their exact number at the moment."

Orlov went on to say that he would "not guess" what had led to the "thinning of the ranks" of the occupiers.

"We can only add that the 'orcs' [a slur used to refer to Russian soldiers] were so frightened that they ran around the station in a panic.

"For a long time they blocked two shifts of operative personnel who were supposed to replace each other," he said.

"The occupiers continue to look for enemies. And, perhaps, they are beginning to realise that the cynical shelling of neighbouring settlements, conducted by them from the territory of the nuclear plant, will not pass without a trace for them."

A Russian serviceman guards an area of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in territory under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine. Photo / AP

It is not known whether there was an accident at the nuclear power station itself, either within the plant or the weapons stored there, or if the plant came under attack from Ukrainian forces from the other side of the river.

The incident has not been verified by other sources.

However, English language Ukrainian news publication the Kyiv Independent has reported that Energoatom – Ukraine's state nuclear power operator – said Russian troops had taken passes from employees of the nuclear plant.

"They didn't wear protective clothes and violated nuclear safety rules, creating the risk of radioactive contamination, according to Energoatom."

It's not clear if this is in relation to the "event" Orlov had spoken of.
Russia firing missiles from nuclear plant

Russian forces have been known to fire at Nikopol, located on the northern bank of the Dnipro, from the Zaporizhzhia power station.

On Monday, missiles destroyed 10 homes in the city of 100,000 people. Two people died in a similar attack on Saturday when 53 rockets were aimed at Nikopol.

Russian news agency Tass has reported claims from the occupying administration in Enerhodar that the plant has come under "massive shelling" in recent days from the Ukrainian military.


There were reports that four shells, launched from the other side of the Dnipro, had landed at the plant and that the attacks risked a "man-made disaster" due to the nuclear material at the station.

It's thought as many as 500 Russian soldiers are now based at the nuclear plant.

When it was captured there were fears a nuclear accident could occur due to heavy shelling around the plant's six reactors.

If Russia maintains control of Zaporizhzhia power station it hopes to eventually use it to supply energy to the Crimea region which Moscow annexed in 2014.

Last week, Moscow-backed separatist authorities in the part of the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia controlled by Russia – including the plant – said they planned to stage a referendum on joining Russia this year.

"We will organise a referendum this autumn," said Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Moscow-installed administration.

He insisted the plebiscite will be "transparent".

"We want to join Russia as the region of Zaporizhzhia," he told reporters during a briefing organised by the Russian defence ministry and attended by AFP.

How One Crypto Company Went From Making Billions To Bankruptcy In Months

 

Witness describes abortion to members of Congress in testimony

Jul 19, 2022

 

Following a series of congressional hearings on the impacts of the end of Roe v Wade, including stories from people who have had abortions, an abortion rights advocate explained in powerful testimony how people can self-manage their medication abortions. The explanation appears to be the first-ever testimony to Congress showing how to use abortion pills outside of a traditional medical setting. “It is one mifepristone pill followed by four misoprostol[s], dissolved under the tongue, 24-48 hours later, or a series of 12 misoprostol pills, four at a time, dissolved under the tongue every three hours,” Renee Bracey Sherman said. She added: “I share that to exercise my right to free speech, because there are organisations and legislators who want to make what I just said a crime.”

Europe's heatwave leaves some Londoners wondering if climate change could make this ancient city unbearable in the future

By Europe correspondent Isabella Higgins in London
Most of London's underground rail network operates without air conditioning. (Reuters: Henry Nicholls)


The UK has experienced scorching heat like it never has before, and it is causing all sorts of problems in a country built for cool, drizzly weather.

For the first time since records began, temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius in the country, peaking at 40.3C at Coningsby, a small village in England's Midlands.

It is about 1.6 degrees warmer than the last hottest day recorded, 38.7C in Cambridge in July 2019.

A new record was also set in Wales on Monday when the maximum reached 37.1C, beating a previous high of 35.2C, while Scotland topped its previous hottest temperature of 32.9C set in 2003, by reaching 34.8C at Charterhall on Tuesday.

Vikki Thompson, a climate scientist from the University of Bristol, told the ABC the record-setting temperatures were "not normal".

"With temperature records, we are seeing them jump up by two or three degrees at a time," she said.

"It's like a long-jump record increasing by a metre, and that's not normal, that's because the climate system is acting as if it's on steroids."

Australians might be used to seeing the mercury climb this high at the peak of summer, but the usual July average maximum in London is about 23C.

In fact, records show that 100 years ago the maximum temperature reached in the UK on July 18, 1922, was just 19.9C.

"Nine of the 10 hottest days have happened in the last decade," Dr Thompson said.

"These heatwaves, they are happening more and more often, and are getting hotter and hotter. That is because of climate change."

The UK experienced its first extreme heat warning in recorded history this week. (Reuters: Kevin Coombs)

Across Europe, the intense heatwave has seen wildfires tear through more than 19,000 hectares in south-west France, and dangerous blazes break out across Portugal, Spain and Greece.

Temperatures hit 47C in Portugal last week, a new July record for the country.

Even in London, the hot, dry, windy conditions saw fires break out around the capital on Tuesday afternoon, forcing the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to declare a major incident.

The LFB said 15 fire engines and about 100 firefighters were dealing with a fire that had already destroyed several houses in the small village of Wennington on London's eastern outskirts.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the fire brigade was under immense pressure and that the situation was "critical".

The unprecedented summer temperatures in the UK are compounded by infrastructure that just "isn't set up for this kind of heat," Dr Thompson said.

The country is now contemplating a future where these sorts of extreme heatwaves become commonplace.
British cities becoming 'urban heat islands'

Britain, with its centuries-old buildings and densely populated towns, faces real challenges during heatwaves.

Buckingham Palace aides brought water to the Queen's Guard who stood outside dressed in woollen coats and fur bearskins. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Few residential buildings are fitted with air-conditioning, a problem many schools, aged-care homes and even some hospitals have struggled with in recent days.

Most structures are designed to keep out wind and trap heat to overcome the long, cold winters.

"I've been to Australia and you're much more adapted to heat," the UK Met Office's services director Simon Brown told the ABC.

"Houses have ceramic floors, air conditioning, and there's more air conditioning in transport systems.

"The UK is just simply not adapted. My house has got carpets and double glazing [on windows]."

The rail network in the country has also been riddled with delays and cancellations, as the infrastructure buckles under the heat.

Multiple stations on London's Underground network had to be temporarily closed early due to issues caused by the weather.

Many British cities turn into "urban heat islands" when the temperatures soar, Professor Prashant Kumar, from the Global Centre for Clean Air Research at the University of Surrey, told the ABC.

"This happens wherever you have a lot of buildings which are made of concrete and other construction materials, like brick," he said.

With its stone and concrete structures and little shade, there were few places for Londoners to retreat from the heat. (Reuters: John Sibley)

"Also, on the roads which are made with asphalt … you can think of all of it as a kind of radiator.

"They actually trap the heat during the daytime and then this heat is released over time, making it even hotter."

Scientists suggested this is why Heathrow airport was the first area to hit 40C in the UK on Tuesday, due to the concentration of runways, roads and concrete areas at the site.

This phenomenon of urban heat islands happens all over the world, especially in cities lacking greenery, tree cover and shade, Professor Kumar said.

Even in smaller cities and towns surrounded by grasslands and vegetation, the urbanised areas will be significantly warmer.

"This temperature difference could vary up to 10 degrees or even more depending on where you are," Professor Kumar said.
40C days could happen 'every 3 to 4 years'

With heatwaves and extreme weather events expected to increase in the coming years, the UK may need to start planning for a hotter future, experts suggest.

St Helier's hospital on the outskirts of London is one UK medical facility not thoroughly fitted with air-conditioning.

One mother gave birth there in the midst of heatwave, and relied on her partner holding a tabletop fan to her face to keep her cool, she told BBC News.

The temperature inside the wards reportedly climbed to over 32C.



"We could expect these 40 degrees days in the UK to happen every three to four years and so they'd become fairly common," Dr Thompson said.

"We will have to be just getting used to them to be able to live through them.

"Earlier this year, we saw the temperatures in India reaching around 50 degrees and that country did cope with it.


"They are set up differently to the UK, if that happens in the UK, everything would stop working."

An adaption strategy will require a multi-faceted approach to make the country's cold-weather infrastructure more resilient to the heat, Professor Kumar said.

"It's not as if you just put lots of trees everywhere, that will solve the problem," he said.

"There is a need, actually, to improve the environmental conditions outside, but also improving the building conditions inside."

Nature-based solutions can make the built environments more resilient to heatwaves, rain events and flooding, while old buildings will need retrofitting, and new buildings must meet heat specifications.

This unprecedented weather should be a reminder to governments and individuals about the growing impacts of climate change, Dr Thompson said.

"Every reduction in greenhouse gases will help make a difference in the future, and even small actions by an individual can make a difference," she said.

"If everybody does it, then we there is a lot more hope for the future."

Iraqi Kurdistan authorities deport Dutch journalist Fréderike Geerdink

  

 Dutch freelance journalist Fréderike Geerdink was deported by Iraqi Kurdistan authorities on July 14, 2022. She had been detained on her way to Kobane, a Kurdish-majority town in Syria, near the Turkish border, to work on a story. (Fréderike Geerdink)

Case

July 19, 2022 

Share this:TwitterFacebookWhatsAppLinkedIEmailTelegram

On July 14, 2022, Iraqi Kurdistan authorities deported Dutch freelance journalist Fréderike Geerdink to her country, according to the journalist, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app and also tweeted about the incident.

In a July 14 tweet, Geerdink said she was detained on her way to Kobane, a Kurdish-majority town in Syria, near the Turkish border.

“I’m being deported from the Kurdistan Region in Iraq. I almost crossed the border into northeast Syria when suddenly [the] atmosphere changed, I was put in a car with police and brought to Erbil airport,” Geerdink wrote. In the tweet, she wrote that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “arm is long.”

Geerdink has worked in Kurdistan and Turkey for more than a decade, reporting on the plight of the Kurdish minority, including the banned Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), according to her website.

In September 2015, Turkey had deported Geerdink for allegedly aiding a “terrorist organization,” as CPJ reported at the time. In February 2015, she was charged in Turkey with allegedly “making propaganda” for the PKK and Union of Communities in Kurdistan, but was acquitted that April, as CPJ reported.

In another tweet, Geerdink wrote she was traveling for a “big story” for a Dutch magazine. She told CPJ via messaging app on July 14 that she was on assignment for De Groene Amsterdammer.

Geerdink told CPJ that the police who detained her “didn’t tell me anything” and said they had “no information” on the reason for her deportation.

“I had a letter from Groene Amsterdammer, I also had my national and international press card,” she told CPJ. “That was all needed to cross the border, everything was 100 percent in order.”

Geerdink said she got in touch with Hans Akerboom,Dutch Consul Generalfor the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in Erbil. “It was great he came to the airport, because I even didn’t ask for it,” she told CPJ. “The authorities told him that I was ‘persona non grata,’ but they never said something to me like that, they didn’t communicate with me.”

“The Dutch Consul General also told me that I was welcome to come to Kurdistan as a tourist but not as a journalist,” she said, adding, “Of course I don’t want to come as a tourist.”

Ahmed Hoshyar, general manager of Erbil International Airport, told CPJ via WhatsApp messaging app on July 14, that “there were some issues with her passport,” but refused to give further information. He urged CPJ to “talk to the Dutch ConsulGeneral, as he is aware of the case.”

Akerboom told CPJ via WhatsApp on July 14 that he didn’t “know the reason” why Geerdink was deported, adding only that it was “never mentioned.”

CPJ reached out to Jutyar Adil, the Kurdistan Region Government spokesperson, for comment via WhatsApp, but did not immediately receive a response.

Nigeria Police Break Legs Of Two Protesting Students, Arrest Many Others In Bauchi Polytechnic

BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORK

JULY 19, 2022

Personnel of the Nigeria Police Force in Bauchi have reportedly arrested some students of the Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic, Bauchi during a protest.

They also allegedly broke the legs of two students.



SaharaReporters learnt the students on Tuesday staged a protest at the school after the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of academic and non-academic staff unions announced the commencement of a 12-day warning strike over several issues including nonpayment of staff salaries and delayed promotion.

One of the protesting students told SaharaReporters that the Rector of the school, Suleiman Lame, could not attend to them as he had been away from the school for three months following his pilgrimage to Mecca. He, however, added that the police operatives drafted to quell the protest broke the legs of two students.

The source added that the police officers went from house to house to arrest the protesting students, during which many of them were arrested while a lecturer identified as Sanusi Ibrahim from the School of General Studies was injured.

The source also alleged that the striking lecturers might have instigated the students to stage the protest.

“I saw the two students whose legs the police broke. I saw them myself. I was not told about it. The police officers also went from house to house arresting the students; many of them. I can’t say the exact number of students arrested but they will be almost 100 that were arrested and taken to the station.

“They also injured one lecturer, Sanusi Ibrahim from the School of General Studies. I saw him.

“When they started going from house to house to arrest the students, some of them were throwing stones at the policemen as they were running. I think the striking lecturers actually instigated the students to protest,” the source said.

Meanwhile, SaharaReporters earlier contacted the Bauchi State Police Public Relations Officer, Ahmad Mohammed Wakili who confirmed that police officers were deployed to the school. He, however, said he was not aware of the arrest of students or the injuries allegedly they reportedly sustained.

However, the spokesperson for the state police command, Ahmed Wakil, promised to confirm the report and get back to our reporter but had not done so at the time of filing this report.

CANADA HEALTHCARE CRISIS
Doctors say health system has ‘collapsed’ as patient surges fuel ER closures

By Teresa Wright Global News
 July 19, 2022 



With surging demand forcing emergency room closures across the country, front-line physicians say more immediate help is needed before things get worse.

Dr. Raghu Venugopal, an emergency room physician in Toronto, says he believes the health system is not collapsing, but rather that it has “already collapsed.”

“Nurses and doctors across Ontario and Canada who are working in emergency departments are greatly dismayed, honestly, by the human situation that patients and families have to face on a daily basis,” he said.

READ MORE: Ontario hospitals warn of more upcoming ER closures through the summer

“The wait times are exceedingly long. Nurses are overwhelmed by the number of orders that they’re being asked to carry out… There is no metric or no nothing that your eyes can’t see as a patient or family member in the ER that says the system has not anything but collapsed as we know it.”

Hospital emergency rooms across the country — from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland and Labrador — have had to temporarily close their doors this summer.

In Alberta, there have been 19 disruptions to emergency and ambulatory care facilities since the beginning of June.

A number of the ER closures have been in smaller, rural hospitals, such as the Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater, B.C., which has experienced over 20 closures this year, says Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell.

On Saturday, the hospital’s emergency room closed again, but this wasn’t announced until the following day, Blackwell told Global News Morning in B.C. Monday.

READ MORE: Rural Saskatchewan ER closures have Assiniboia, Sask. residents ‘concerned’

“That’s obviously a huge concern to citizens that we don’t know that the ER is closed,” he said.

“More concerning is actually I’m hearing now that ambulance crews were unaware and showed up with a patient on the overnight shift and had to… divert to Kamloops. So that kind of communication breakdown is obviously very, very troubling.”

But the the problems aren’t just in rural areas.

On Sunday, Montreal Children’s Hospital was temporarily forced to turn patients away due to overcrowding. In B.C., where four Interior hospitals announced temporary diversions over the weekend, the official advice for those requiring emergency care was to call 911 — and move on to the next closest ER.

Staff shortages to cause ER closures in 6 Quebec hospitals this summer – Jun 22, 2022

For some, this could mean travelling long distances for care.

In New Brunswick this weekend, Morgan Lanigan’s wife, Kelly, was in so much pain Sunday evening they decided they had to go to the nearest hospital emergency room, which for them was St. Joseph’s Hospital in Saint John. But the emergency department there was at full capacity — as was Saint John Regional Hospital.

After an hour on the road, the couple arrived to a full waiting room at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital, where they waited three hours to be triaged.

READ MORE: ‘She couldn’t take the pain’: N.B. couple get turned away at several ERs

“When finally a doctor did come out and was taking vitals of everybody in the waiting room, which was really nice to see, but when he did take my wife’s vitals he did say, I believe, there is only two nurses on duty and the triage nurse who was on a 12-hour shift just raced down to Saint John to help them at their ER,” Lanigan said.

What is driving ER closures?

Dr. Katharine Smart, president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), says the issues driving these closures are complex, but one of the biggest issues right now are shortages of health workers across Canada, particularly in nursing.

“That’s the main reason we’re seeing behind closures is there’s just no one to actually work in the emergency department,” she said.

READ MORE: ER closures expected as doctors concerned over rural and Northern Manitoba health care

Ontario municipal leaders call for action amid several temporary ER closures

Normally, summers are slower periods for hospitals, but emergency rooms are seeing higher volumes of patients that are more typical of winter, which is unusual, Smart said. Many of these are patients who have been putting off seeing a physician during the pandemic and are now sicker or in need of more care.

But what’s most unusual are the ER closures across the country, she said.

READ MORE: ‘We are absolutely destroyed’: Health workers facing burnout, even as COVID levels ease

“I think the impact of what we’re seeing right now really is unprecedented and at a level that is unique and it hasn’t happened in past years.”

Dr. Melanie Bechard, an emergency room physician at CHEO in Ontario says she has only been running a full independent practice for just over a year, and what she’s been experiencing has been nothing like her training.

“The volumes of patients that we’re seeing are record high, both for myself and for the hospital, and it was a really rude introduction to the practice of medicine, in a way,” she said.


Dr. Melanie Bechard, an emergency room physician at CHEO, says she’s seeing record-high volumes of patients. Submitted photo.

“I’ve been seeing far more patients than I ever thought I would in a shift.”

Bechard says she has had to “compartmentalize” her feelings of guilt for the long waits being experienced by so many patients and families, while she can only safely treat one patient at a time.

“I think that as emergency providers, we’ve always viewed our work and our career as being one that is available for you 24-7, no matter what, any time of day. However, we’re seeing that we’re not able to deliver on that promise anymore,” she said.

“The thought of rural emergency departments being closed when there is very limited other options for after hours care is scary to see, and I really think it should absolutely capture the attention of policymakers and of the public. We really need to give these emergency departments the resources they need in order to stay open and deliver high quality care.”

READ MORE: Nurse shortages lead to emergency room bed closures in Alberta: doctor, union

Toronto emergency room physician Dr. Kashif Pirzada says a seventh wave of COVID-19 is fuelling a lot of the patient surges in his ER.

He believes governments and the public have gone too far in doing away with public health measures, such as masking and physical distancing, which is why more people are getting sick and needing emergency care.

“We’re getting waves (of COVID-19) every two to three months and the system was just not designed for the stress of this… so we’re seeing the strains now,” he said.

“On the other hand, you also have staff completely burned out from dealing with this for the last two-and-a-half years. So a lot of people have left emergency medicine, nurses and physicians, and that’s contributing to the problem now.”

Staffing shortage forces temporary closure of another B.C. hospital ER – May 29, 2022

A 'dress rehearsal' for fall and winter

And Pirzada believes it could get worse, if more isn’t done to stop people from contracting COVID-19.

“I consider this wave as a dress rehearsal for what’s going to happen in the fall or winter when we have another wave. But this time, we won’t be outdoors as much, schools will be back in session,” he said.

“So whatever stress we’re facing right now, we have to deal with it somehow. There needs to be leadership, otherwise we face much worse in the fall and winter.”

Physicians want policy makers to do more to immediately increase resources not just to emergency departments, but to other areas of health care, such as long-term care and primary care, so people who don’t need to be in an ER can get medical help in a more appropriate venue, Smart said.

But there also needs to be an acknowledgement that the health system is in crisis, she said.

Health minister under fire after Quebec man’s family says ER closure led to his death – Dec 2, 2021

“I think the first thing that needs to happen right now is just for governments to treat this like an emergency,” Smart said.

“There’s a series of pressure points that likely have some tangible solutions, but it’s going to mean meeting with front-line health care workers, rapidly identifying what they are and then putting the resources in to make those things happen.”

Asked about the pressures facing the health system Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government knows many Canadians struggle to be seen by a physician, whether because they lack a family doctor or due to emergency room closures.

But he didn’t offer any new or concrete solutions, pointing only to a previously-announced $2 billion spending commitment promised by Ottawa to the provinces in March to reduce surgical backlogs. Those dollars need to come with results, Trudeau said, punting the issue back to the provinces.

“Yes, the federal government is there as a partner, is going to invest more. But we have to learn from the past and make sure that, as we step up with more funds, it actually helps Canadians get a family doctor, get access to mental health services, support them through the challenges they are facing as we come out of COVID,” Trudeau said.

“These are the things that Canadians are expecting and the federal government is going to be there to make sure — alongside the provinces — that that happens.”

Venugopal says he feels for patients being forced to wait so many hours while they may be dealing with painful illnesses and injuries. But he says he is also concerned for nurses, many of whom have borne the brunt of patient frustrations that can often escalate to abuse.

He has seen nurses being subjected to racialized slurs and sexually harassing behaviour on a daily basis.

READ MORE: ‘A nurse can’t be everywhere’: Ontario health care staff shortages prompt ER closures

“It’s very important to point out and put a pin on the suffering in the nursing profession — our nurses are physically assaulted and are verbally assaulted every day in our emergency rooms. And this kind of work situation that they face is further driving them from the bedside,” he said.

“So it’s really a dire situation. And we need policy leaders and political leaders to show they give a damn.”

— with files from Global News reporters Jamie Mauracher and Nathalie Sturgeon.

    

KENNEY'S ALBERTA
Patient lying on Drayton Valley hospital ER floor prompts call for change

She said they waited for more than five hours for care. 

By Kim Smith Global News
Posted July 19, 2022 

Brittany Broere said her younger sister was in too much pain to sit in a chair while waiting for a doctor at the Drayton Valley Hospital, so she laid on the floor. Supplied

Brittany Broere is speaking out about some of the issues happening at her local hospital after a recent trip to the emergency department at the Drayton Valley Hospital and Care Centre 130 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.


“I feel absolutely horrible for the staff,” said Broere, a mother and sister from Buck Creek, Alta.

Over the weekend, Broere took her seven-year-old sister to the Drayton Valley ER for an infection. However, because the girl had COVID-like symptoms the sisters were put in an isolation room with only a chair and no bed.

READ MORE: Doctors say health system has ‘collapsed’ as patient surges fuel ER closures

Broere said her younger sister was in too much pain to sit in a chair while waiting for a doctor, so she laid on the floor.

“I was mortified I couldn’t help her,” she said.

“I took off all my sweaters and stuff that I could to make it comfy for her. She was in a lot of pain.”

This wasn’t the first time Broere had a terrible time in an isolation room.

About two and a half months ago, Broere took her own two young sons to the same emergency department for ear infections and again only had one chair and no bed in an isolation room.

READ MORE: Calgarians waiting longer in hospital emergency rooms: AHS data

She said they waited for more than five hours for care. 

 ER closures, wait times impacting essential care for Canadians

“I understand the chair is not the end of the world. But when you go in there with kids, and you have one chair, somebody is sitting on the floor,” Broere said.

“We left untreated. I couldn’t sit there any longer. My back was so sore sitting on the floor.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Alberta Health Services said in many rural areas like Drayton Valley, there are no dedicated isolation rooms. If a patient has COVID-like symptoms, hospital staff members will prepare a room for them.

The spokesperson also encouraged families to connect with AHS’ patient relations department to work towards a better understanding of what happened.

“To increase the number of patients seen in the Emergency Department, patients are provided with a chair instead of a stretcher, if medically appropriate. Infection prevention procedures take less time to complete through this fast-track process,” the spokesperson said.

“If a child must be isolated, a second chair is typically provided for the parent/guardian.

“We know this is not ideal, and we are committed to working with any patients and families to review any recent negative experiences in our facilities.”

AHS also said it has been trying unsuccessfully to hire more cleaning staff for the Drayton Valley Hospital.

READ MORE: Canadian health care on ‘brink of disaster,’ nurses say

“We have been working to address this staff deficit and acknowledge the value of our environmental services staff to our facility’s operations.”

The emergency department has a full complement of nursing staff, according to AHS.

Broere said she hopes the situation changes.

“I’d really like to stress the fact that none of this is pointed at the hospital or the staff. My anger goes to AHS and the higher-ups. I don’t understand why they can’t do better, especially for these tiny hospitals,” Broere said.

A spokesperson for Alberta Health directed questions to AHS.

School police didn’t stop Parkland or Uvalde shootings, and often discriminate against students. Why did Biden give them $300m?


Campus police officers are often cited as an effective tool against gun violence. But the data shows they do little to stop school shootings — and often discriminate against students of colour. Josh Marcus reports



The scene of the Parkland shooting in 2018: campus police have been present for

 – but unable to stop – a number of school shootings
(Getty Images)

When it comes to gun violence in America, the clock seems stuck.

The same horrific tragedies occur. The same debates are had. The same solutions are proposed. The same actions are taken. The same tragedies occur once more.

That sense of deja vu is especially palpable when it comes to one of the thorniest parts of the school safety debate: on-campus police.

On Monday, the penalty phase began in the trial of Nikolas Cruz, who shot and killed 17 people and injured numerous others in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas school massacre in Parkland, Florida.

That shooting prompted Florida to require every public school in the state to have armed security personnel on campus to stop mass shootings, even though such security was present and failed at Parkland.

Scot Peterson, then an armed deputy with the Broward Sheriff’s Office, was stationed at the school, and is now facing neglect and negligence charges for failing to enter the school building and confront Cruz. (Mr Peterson has defended his actions, saying he thought the school may have been under sniper fire, and that he followed his training.)

People are brought out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after the February 14, 2018, Parkland shooting.
(Getty Images)

But that wasn’t a new idea. The same solution had been proposed two decades earlier, after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, where an armed school resource officers was present at the time of the shooting and didn’t stop gunmen from killing 15 people.


And it’s the same fix being put into place now, after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. That’s despite the fact that months of active shooter training, tens of thousands of dollars in security investments, and multiple armed police officers failed to stop gunman Salvador Ramos from entering Robb Elementary School and killing 21 people, and hundreds of officers failed to engage the 18-year-old for more than an hour as he continued shooting students inside.

The much-touted bipartisan gun deal President Joe Biden signed in June doubles funding for school police and other school security measures, investing $300m more in federal anti-violence grants.

US President Joe Biden, joined Attorney General Merrick Garland, speaks on gun crime prevention measures at the White House on June 23, 2021 in Washington DC
(Getty Images)

School resource officers are often one of the only politically acceptable, publicly popular solutions to school shootings that receive new investments.

However, even as the use of so-called “school resource officers” (SROs) has exploded in recent years, data shows the added boots on the ground have done little to stop more mass shootings on campus. Instead, by connecting schools directly to agents of the criminal justice system, school officials seem to have inadvertently imported all the racial biases of mass incarceration along with them.

Police respond to the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Tuesday, May 24, 2022
((Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File))

Few if any schools in the 1960s and 1970s had a large police presence, according to Professor F Chris Curran, director of the Education Policy Research Center at the University of Florida.

The 1980 and ‘90s changed that, with the rise of “Tough on Crime” politics and mass shootings like Columbine rocking the national consciousness. Officers were brought in to stop crime on campus, and increasingly, to protect children from gun violence.

“Following Columbine, and as we’ve seen a number of tragic school shootings, some of that narrative and reason for law enforcement has shifted to one of protecting students from external threats, more focused on the mass school shootings as opposed to the more day-to-day violence that might be present in some schools,” he told The Independent.

The Parkland shooting inspired a state law requiring armed security on all public school grounds, a first nationwide
(AFP via Getty Images)

Police are increasingly being deployed even in grade schools.

“It’s not that they’re being brought in because there’s high levels of crime in elementary schools. It’s to be there as an essential protector, to try to prevent something like Sandy Hook or like the tragedy in Uvalde.”

As of 2018, at least 58 per cent of schools had one law enforcement officer, with school police forces distributed roughly evenly between rural and urban schools, and those with and without large populations of students of colour. Since 1998, the US has spent over $1bn on school police.

It’s a trend that looks set to grow, as America once again searches for solutions after a string of mass school shootings.

Polls indicate that parents are extremely supportive of school police, with one survey finding 80 per cent backed SROs, 4 per cent more than those who wanted mental health screenings for all students.

Politicians across the political spectrum support them, too.

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, ordered an increased police presence in schools after the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, explaining, “We will do everything in our power to ensure students, parents, and educators feel safe at school.” So did New York’s Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, ordering routine police check-ins at Empire State schools for the rest of the year.

This month, Michigan’s GOP-controlled legislature allocated $25m for school resource officers,

Days after Uvalde, US Senator for Texas Ted Cruz argued, “We know from past experience that the most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus.”

Periodically, such as after the 2020 mass racial justice protests, some schools like those in Milwaukee have reevaluated their relationships with police forces or cut ties, but by and large the school resource officer trend continues unabated.

SROs may have become one of America’s primary ways of stopping school shootings, but according to University of Florida’s Professor Curran, the research doesn’t actually suggest these police do much to stop school shootings from occurring.

“That’s one of the maybe disappointing takeaways and very important takeaways, given that that’s some of the justification and reason many schools are using police,” he said. “In some ways, it resonates with what we know anecdotally. You can look at Parkland right here in Florida. They had an SRO in the school and it didn’t deter and didn’t effectively stop the perpetrator from taking a lot of lives.”

Researchers analyzing school shootings between 1999 and 2018 found that the presence of SROs on campus makes no observable difference in stopping the severity of a given shooting. Another team found that the presence of school police may actually make things worse. Hamline University criminal justice professor Jillian Peterson looked at 40 years worth of school shootings, covering 133 incidents from the 20 years before and after 1999’s Columbine massacre, and found that there were three times as many people killed during these events when there was an armed office on the scene.

Explanations for these trends vary. Some suggest that school shooters arm themselves more heavily if they know they’ll face armed police. Others speculate that those in a mental state to carry out a school shooting simply don’t care that they could be shot by an armed officer. There’s also the fact that, according to Prof Curran, police in schools are often outgunned by school shooters, and only accurately shoot back about a third of the time under high stress.

“Even highly trained people may not be effective at neutralising the threat immediately,” he said.

What the research does show, however, is that school police mirror larger trends in the criminal justice system, and focus disproportionate attention, and at times violence, on students of colour.

Researchers at the University of Albany and RAND Corporate found in 2021 that SROs don’t effectively prevent school shootings or gun-related incidents, but increase the use of suspensions, expulsions, police referrals, and criminal arrests — punishments directed at Black students two times more often than white ones.

Other research indicates schools with SROs see a decrease in high school graduation and college enrollment rates, while Black students experience the largest increase in discipline.

According to the US Department of Education, Black students without disabilities made up 30 per cent of school-related arrests in 2017, twice their share of the public school population, while white students were comparatively under-represented. The Center for Public Integrity, meanwhile, has found that in 46 states, Black students are referred to law enforcement at higher rates than all students, even though no US state has a majority Black population.

Research also suggests Black girls in particular face even worse disproportionate punishment by school police.

That’s just in the aggregate. One interaction with police can change the trajectory of a young student’s life, as portrayed in the 2021 documentary On These Grounds, about a 2015 viral video of a school resource officer in Columbia, South Carolina, violently arresting a girl in class.

On 15 October, 2015, Spring Valley High School school resource officer Ben Fields was called into a math class to remove Shakara Murphy, who was supposedly misbehaving. Video captures the officer briefly asking Ms Murphy to stand up. When she remains in her chair, seconds later he flips her backward over the chair, then hurling her across the room before kneeling on top of her and arresting her, leaving her with rug burn on her face and a hairline facture in her wrist.

Another student, Niya Kenny, who filmed the encounter and challenge Mr Fields’s use of force, was also arrested and temporarily sent to an adult jail.

“I was in disbelief. I know this girl got nobody. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I’ve never seen nothing like that in my life, a man use so much force on a little girl, a big man like, 300 pounds of full muscle. I was like no way, no way, you can’t do that to a little girl,” she told local news at the time.

Both girls were booked under an archaic early 1900s “disturbing schools” law that made it a misdemeanour to disturb school in any way. The law has roots in the Jim Crow South, when it was first introduced to prevent flirting with white women at a women’s college, and was later used to quell civil rights protests in schools in the 1960s.

What was missing from the video, and in the minds of many critics, from the whole situation, was a larger context or any sense that extreme force shouldn’t be used on a teenager simply because she wouldn’t stand up out of a desk.

The incident began when Ms Murphy, a foster child, got in a disagreement with her teacher, who was barring her from accessing her legally protected school disability assistance plan during a math test. Officer Fields, a hulking powerlifter, actually knew about Ms Murphy and her background, and had stopped other students from picking on her in the past. That didn’t stop him from tossing her across the room like a sack of trash.

“What was going on in his mind that he had to throw me like that?” Ms Murphy told filmmakers in On These Grounds. “I want other kids to be able to go to school, get their education, and be safe and feel like that’s not going to happen to them.”

Both Ms Murphy and Ms Kenny, as is typical with many students who face police discipline, never returned to Spring Valley High School.

Ben Fields, who was fired after the incident but did not face any criminal charges, argues he wasn’t being racist, and that he was actually following department use-of-force policy.

In the chaos of the arrest, Ms Murphy said she reached out to find a handhold, accidentally striking the school resource officer in the face. The former officer, who is white, interpreted it as an intentional punch, which would’ve entitled him to use a baton or an attack dog against Ms Murphy, who is Black, according to a department use-of-force memo at the time.

“If I had took out a baton and hit her with it, does that look good? If I had called a canine on her, does that look good? What is this, 1960?” Mr Fields says in the film. “I did what I thought was best in the situation, based on my training.”

He also told filmmakers the so-called “schools-to-prison pipeline,” a concept popularised by scholars like Michelle Alexander, is “one of the biggest hoaxes I’ve ever heard of.”

At the time of the viral video, according to the ACLU, 71 per cent of students in South Carolina referred to the Department of Juvenile Justice were Black, a rate nearly three times greater than their share of the overall population. Spring Valley’s arrests of students had an even higher percentage of African-Americans, an astonishing 88 per cent.

Activists like Vivian Anderson, founder of EveryBlackGirl, a group that supports young Black women in the face of police violence and other forms of discrimination, say schools should prioritize counseling and other social services over policing.

“These are two girls. What happens when we start pushing young people out of school? We know what it means to silence trauma. That’s how we get all our -isms. Our alcoholism, all our addictions,” she says in the documentary about Spring Valley. “This should never happen to any child.”

In 2019 the ACLU has estimated that millions of children in US public schools have police on school grounds, but no access to a social worker, mental health counselor, or nurse.

There are some in Washington who are trying to change this resource gap.

In June, a group of Democrats in Congress introduced the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act, which would shift federal resources away from police and towards more social services.

“Since Columbine, our country has approached the problem of school shootings by funding school police,” Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts said at a June hearing. “A billion dollars, thousands of school police officers — when 90% of our students can’t access a school nurse or social worker or guidance counselor — and more than two decades later, we find ourselves in the same spot as before. Only in America.”

As Professor Curran, the University of Florida researcher, points out, school police are only a recent invention in the US. If schools can shift so much to accommodate them, it follows that schools can change in other ways if people decide school policing is not living up to its promises.

“We have a history of having schools without police,” he said.

His personal view, after having worked with parents, schools, and officers themselves, is that it’s a highly nuanced issue, and one where community control is vital. That would factor in historical experiences between communities and police, he says.

“It’s perfectly possible to imagine a world in which schools have no police for many nationwide,” he said.

It’s possible, but after another summer of school shooting tragedies, it remains to be seen whether it’s likely.

How Amazon, Starbucks, And Other Companies Fight Unions – OpEd

July 20, 2022 
By Robert Reich

You as a worker have a legal right to join a union, but there are many ways big corporations are skirting the law to stop you from getting your fair share. You could be working for a union-buster and not even know it.

Here are four of the biggest union-busting tricks to look out for:

One: Anti-Union Propaganda.

Employers turn workers into a captive audience for false or misleading claims about unions. In 2019 Delta distributed pamphlets to flight attendants and ramp service workers warning that union fees would cost $700 dollars per year. But here’s what they didn’t mention: unionized workers earn $700 more per month.

Weird how they left that part out, isn’t it?

Amazon wallpapered its warehouses with anti-union ads. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz claimed he had no choice but to exclude workers at unionizing stores from new employee benefits.

Apparently when you’re the boss you can just make stuff up.
Advertisement

‘Two: Your employer hires fancy anti-union firms, lawyers, and consultants.

The company claims it can’t afford to raise workers’ pay but spends millions on anti-union consultants. You might hear your bosses call this “Union Avoidance,” but it basically just means “Union busting, in a suit.”

Three: Delay, delay, delay.

It’s illegal for employers to cancel a vote on whether to unionize. But they skirt the law to keep that vote from happening as long as possible.

And while they’re delaying, they play dirty tricks to stop a union’s momentum. Before a recent labor election in Buffalo, Starbucks flooded stores with managers to pressure workers. One Starbucks employee reported he was told to go to a meeting, only to be greeted by six managers pressuring him to reject the union.

So that’s how many managers it takes to screw over an employee.
Four: If none of these union-busting tactics work, your employer might just break the law.

Starbucks recently fired more than twenty union leaders. Amazon fired a union leader for missing work – even though he was on leave to care for a COVID-stricken family member. U.S. employers are charged with violating federal law in over 40% of all union election campaigns.

I’m sorry, I just have to pause for a second here. 40% of the time? Really? If I broke the law 40% of the time, I’d be in jail quicker than you can say “Pinkerton!”

Are companies allowed to skirt the law like this? No! But labor laws take a long time to enforce – if they’re enforced at all. And the worst that can happen is a corporation has to rehire a worker who it illegally fired and provide back pay. No wonder some companies decide that breaking the law is cheaper than following it. It’s simply a “cost of doing business” for a giant corporation like Amazon.

But here’s some good news: A bill called “The PRO Act” would strengthen protections for union organizers and make many kinds of “union avoidance” illegal. Call your lawmakers and ask them to support it today.

They won’t just be on the right side of history. They’ll be on the right side of public opinion. A majority of Americans, including 77% of young people, support the right to join a union. Workers at Starbucks and Amazon have refused to be intimidated and have started to unionize. All over the country, American workers are growing wise to corporate union-busting tricks.

Big corporations are fighting dirty to keep their workers from organizing – and they’re still losing. Imagine what could happen if they had to fight fair.