Health & Safety

Few habits have proven as stubborn to stamp out as smoking, but the tide may be turning—just not in the direction some expected. Canadian authorities now urge caution, placing vaping firmly at the back of the line for those hoping to kick the cigarette habit. Canadian smokers looking for a way out are being steered […]

On a Monday that should have seen families splashing at Barrie’s beloved Centennial Beach, the city’s heart was instead marked by caution tape and yellow warning signs—each a silent testament to the power of invisible threats lurking just below the water’s surface. Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit officials triggered a swim advisory for Centennial Beach

In the quiet hours of summer, a new threat has crept through open windows and attic vents: bats. Ontario’s Peterborough Public Health, now merged with Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit, is sounding the alarm after a spike in bat-related exposures left residents and officials on edge. Across the region, an uptick in encounters

The earth beneath Barrie’s feet has turned brittle, grass crisped to straw, and the city’s firefighters have drawn a hard line in the dust. A total fire ban has swept across Barrie, halting every match struck outdoors in an effort to douse a growing risk. The City of Barrie wasted no time after officials elevated

For the first time since winter, Ontario’s public health officials find themselves reading a measles report with a small, almost reassuring number. Eight new cases—down from the triple-digit weekly surges that marked the start of 2025—have prompted a rare sigh of relief, even as the shadow of the outbreak lingers. Ontario’s encounter with measles in

Charred earth smouldered under the August sun as Springwater and Wasaga Beach firefighters raced to contain a surging field fire on County Road 92, a battle against both flames and the region’s relentless drought. On Sunday evening, crews mobilized quickly to shield farms and nearby homes from a blaze racing across parched ground. The inferno,

A hospital can be a lifeline or a last hope, but in rural Ontario, keeping its doors open often hinges on a single word: locum. With over 350 physician vacancies lingering in northern communities, the struggle to find doctors isn’t just a headline—it’s a daily reality. The shortage of full-time physicians across rural and northern

A prescription slip in hand, a patient steps into the pharmacy only to find relief is out of stock. It’s a scenario playing out across Canada as the painkiller shortage tightens its grip, leaving patients and pharmacists navigating uncharted waters. Acetaminophen with codeine and acetaminophen with oxycodone have become scarce, and not just in big

The morning calm at Barrie’s ONroute shattered in an instant—a vehicle engulfed in flames, smoke curling skyward, the hum of traffic breaking for sirens. Yet, as the last ember faded, one fact stood out: not a single person was hurt. In the unpredictable theatre of highway emergencies, that is no accident. Vehicle fires on highways