King Charles' cancer treatment progressing well, says Buckingham Palace
King Charles III’s doctors are 'sufficiently pleased' with his cancer treatment and he is expected to return to public-facing duties, Buckingham Palace announced on Friday.
Roy Dahl’s bags are packed at the door as he waits for a call that would save his life -- the news that after years of dialysis treatment, he will finally be receiving a kidney transplant.
Dahl is in end-stage kidney failure, and has been on a waiting list for transplant for seven years.
“It’ll save my life,” he told CTV News. “It will be like winning the lottery.”
But, like many people in Canada, Dahl is dealing with the added agony of a potential delay as the fifth wave of COVID-19 floods hospitals.
“I just got a call last week from the transplant co-ordinator saying: ‘You’re number one on the list, and you will get a kidney soon, but we just have to make accommodations for COVID-19 cases,’” Dahl said.
So close, yet so far away. Across the country, provinces have cancelled or delayed thousands of surgeries since the pandemic began.
“We only have capacity in the system for immediately life-threatening things,” Dr. Katharine Smart, president of the Canadian Medical Association, told CTV News.
There are no real short-term solutions to address the backlog.
“Things that are urgent, including kidney transplants, other organ transplants, some cancer surgeries are being delayed, and the impact on Canadians is huge,” Smart said.
The impact on Dahl is that he must go for dialysis three times a week for four-and-a-half hours each time.
The 61-year-old grandfather is Ojibway, and according to the Kidney Foundation of Canada, Indigenous people are more than three times more likely to have kidney failure than non-Indigenous people.
Complicating things is that those undergoing dialysis for kidney failure are at a higher risk than many groups when it comes to COVID-19.
One study from 2020 found that dialysis patients who contracted COVID-19 had a 20 to 30 per cent mortality rate.
If dialysis patients are receiving their dialysis treatment in a hospital or a dedicated centre outside of their home, they also risk exposure to the virus, due to the travel needed for multiple life-sustaining dialysis treatments per week.
For those with end-stage kidney failure, there is no cure. Those suffering from it have to go on dialysis either for the rest of their life, or until they can secure a kidney transplant.
When the time comes for Dahl to receive his new kidney, he will have to travel from Yellowknife to Edmonton for the procedure.
For now, all he can do is wait.
“I jump every time that phone rings,” Dahl said. “I keep hoping that it’s that call from the renal unit in Edmonton.”
Alberta Health Services said transplant services have continued during the pandemic, but added that some surgeries have been delayed by factors including whether critical care beds are available.
King Charles III’s doctors are 'sufficiently pleased' with his cancer treatment and he is expected to return to public-facing duties, Buckingham Palace announced on Friday.
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
After the Assembly of First Nations' national chief complained to Air Canada about how staffers treated her and her ceremonial headdress on a flight this week, she says the airline responded by offering a 15 per cent discount on her next flight.
An investigation is underway after a Regina police officer was accidentally shot by a fellow officer’s gun during the search of a house early Friday morning.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
The current overall public health risk posed by the H5N1 bird flu virus is low, the World Health Organization said on Friday, but urged countries to stay alert for cases of animal-to-human transmission.
A pair of Montreal designers' work has now been viewed over 41 million times. Taylor Swift dons a Victorian throwback black gown in her latest music video, 'Fortnight', designed by UNTTLD due Simon Belanger and Jose Manuel Saint-Jacques.
Health Canada issued recalls for various items this week, including kids’ bathrobes, cribs and henna cones.
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The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
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A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.