Natural Resources committee  That conversation with the patient and family is like many conversations we have. One describes the benefit of the examination. One describes the risk of the examination. One describes the risk of not doing the examination or deferring the examination. One helps the patient and t

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I'm here. I'm getting used to the video conferencing thing here. Really, the working group's efforts along with those of the federal Ministry of Health have largely been focused on strategies to maximize the use of existing supplies. We have spoken, I think, in the group ma

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to appear once again before you. I last spoke to this committee in February 2008 in the aftermath of the regulatory shutdown at the NRU at Chalk River. I'm also a member of the group of experts that was called togeth

Natural Resources committee  Yes, those were my numbers, and that was me in the paper. I underestimated the number of procedures we were doing across those four hospitals. It was actually 90 procedures that we were doing a week. In that first week, we did drop down to that number of 12. Fortunately, due to

Natural Resources committee  I'm sorry to hear that.

Natural Resources committee  I didn't see any formal projections of what would happen. We were making estimates as to what would happen based upon the number of generators that were coming in from alternate sources. What we did know is that one of the major suppliers would not be supplying us with anything.

Natural Resources committee  I believe there are two major generator manufacturers. One of them is Bristol-Myers Squibb and the other one is Covidien. My understanding was that there were insufficient numbers of generators coming into the country in order to supply the market. That certainly was what we were

Natural Resources committee  More global information was coming to us through the Health Canada ad hoc committee, in terms of what they were able to supply. On the ground, had our central radiopharmacy been able to access more generators, then they certainly would have done so and would have been able to su

Natural Resources committee  This is the piece that was published by the CMAJ just this week? Is that correct?

Natural Resources committee  I was provided with it this morning by the CMA and I have reviewed it. I think what is important to understand is that given adequate notice, given the time to ramp up supply and bring the material into the country, then yes, they could have presumably done so. But in the situati

Natural Resources committee  I actually bring up the issue of planning.

Natural Resources committee  We contacted Health Canada on a separate issue, and that was implementing the supply of sodium fluoride for bone scanning.

Natural Resources committee  I think the community has learned a lot from this event. I believe it is the responsibility...I guess maybe of all of us. We need to be able to assure ourselves that there is security of supply. That is why we are anxious to move forward with Health Canada and the other parties c

Natural Resources committee  —or a company.

Natural Resources committee  I believe we have a plan to work towards a plan at the moment. I think it would be disingenuous for me to say we have everything covered and are all ready to go, and that tomorrow, if Chalk River shut down, we wouldn't be back to where we started from. We would be there again.