Cost Strategies for Litigants: The Significance of R. v. Caron

At first blush, Caron is not a very interesting development in the advance costs jurisprudence. at best it represents a modest “liberalization” of the jurisprudence and may thus make obtaining such awards ever so slightly easier than in the past, even if such awards will always remain “exceptional”. In its deference to the rulings of the lower courts, the Court may have sent a signal that an order for advance costs will be less reviewable than in previous years, so counsel had better plan on getting their orders from the trial court lest there be no order at all. Where Caron may turn out to be more interesting is not so much on the law of advance costs, but rather on the extent of the superior court’s inherent jurisdiction to come in aid of inferior courts and tribunals. The Court held that superior courts have jurisdiction to come in aid of inferior tribunals where it is “essential to avoid an injustice”, leaving the possibilities for new applications of this rather ancient doctrine intriguing. As well, the Court’s refusal to comment on the correctness of the earlier Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench decision that the provincial court lacked jurisdiction to award interim costs, coupled with Abella J.’s concurring judgment, leaves open the possibility that inferior courts, and even administrative tribunals, the mselves hold the power to award interim costs in circumstances where the criteria for such an award are otherwise met and where such a power is necessary for the m to perform their intended functions

Cost Strategies for Litigants: The Significance of R. v. Caron

At first blush, Caron is not a very interesting development in the advance costs jurisprudence. at best it represents a modest “liberalization” of the jurisprudence and may thus make obtaining such awards ever so slightly easier than in the past, even if such awards will always remain “exceptional”. In its deference to the rulings of the lower courts, the Court may have sent a signal that an order for advance costs will be less reviewable than in previous years, so counsel had better plan on getting their orders from the trial court lest there be no order at all. Where Caron may turn out to be more interesting is not so much on the law of advance costs, but rather on the extent of the superior court’s inherent jurisdiction to come in aid of inferior courts and tribunals. The Court held that superior courts have jurisdiction to come in aid of inferior tribunals where it is “essential to avoid an injustice”, leaving the possibilities for new applications of this rather ancient doctrine intriguing. As well, the Court’s refusal to comment on the correctness of the earlier Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench decision that the provincial court lacked jurisdiction to award interim costs, coupled with Abella J.’s concurring judgment, leaves open the possibility that inferior courts, and even administrative tribunals, the mselves hold the power to award interim costs in circumstances where the criteria for such an award are otherwise met and where such a power is necessary for the m to perform their intended functions

Responsible management: Engaging moral reflexive practice through threshold concepts

YesIn this conceptual paper we argue that, to date, principles of responsible management have not impacted practice as anticipated because of a disconnect between knowledge and practice. This disconnect means that an awareness of ethical concerns, by itself, does not help students take personal responsibility for their actions. We suggest that an abstract knowledge of principles has to be supplemented by an engaged understanding of the responsibility of managers and leaders to actively challenge irresponsible practices. We argue that a form of moral reflexive practice drawing on an understanding of threshold concepts is central to responsible management, and provides a gateway to transformative learning. Our conceptual argument leads to implications for management and professional education

Health care seeking behavior for diarrhea in children under 5 in rural Niger: results of a cross-sectional survey

Diarrhea remains the second leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. Health care seeking behavior for diarrhea varies by context and has important implications for developing appropriate care strategies and estimating burden of disease. The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of children under five with diarrhea who consulted at a health structure in order to identify the appropriate health care levels to set up surveillance of severe diarrheal diseases

Health and economic impact of rotavirus vaccination in GAVI-eligible countries

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Rotavirus infection is responsible for about 500,000 deaths annually, and the disease burden is disproportionately borne by children in low-income countries. Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) has released a global recommendation that all countries include infant rotavirus vaccination in their national immunization programs. Our objective was to provide information on the expected health, economic and financial consequences of rotavirus vaccines in the 72 GAVI support-eligible countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We synthesized population-level data from various sources (primarily from global-level databases) for the 72 countries eligible for the support by the GAVI Alliance (GAVI-eligible countries) in order to estimate the health and economic impact associated with rotavirus vaccination programs. The primary outcome measure was incremental cost (in 2005 international dollars [I$]) per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted. We also projected the expected reduction in rotavirus disease burden and financial resources required associated with a variety of scale-up scenarios.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Under the base-case assumptions (70$25 per vaccinated child (~$5 per dose), the number of countries with the incremental cost per DALY averted less than I$200 was 47. Using the WHO's cost-effectiveness threshold based on per capita GDP, the vaccines were considered cost-effective in 68 of the 72 countries (~94%). A 10-year routine rotavirus vaccination would prevent 0.9-2.8 million rotavirus associated deaths among children under age 5 in the poorest parts of the world, depending on vaccine scale-up scenarios. Over the same intervention period, rotavirus vaccination programs would also prevent 4.5-13.3 million estimated cases of hospitalization and 41-107 million cases of outpatient clinic visits in the same population.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings suggest that rotavirus vaccination would be considered a worthwhile investment for improving general development as well as childhood health level in most low-income countries, with a favorable cost-effectiveness profile even under a vaccine price ($1.5-$5.0 per dose) higher than those of traditional childhood vaccines.</p

Infectious aetiologies of neonatal illness in south Asia classified using WHO definitions: a primary analysis of the ANISA study.

BACKGROUND: Globally, neonatal mortality accounts for almost half of all deaths in children younger than 5 years. Aetiological agents of neonatal infection are difficult to identify because the clinical signs are non-specific. Using data from the Aetiology of Neonatal Infections in south Asia (ANISA) cohort, we aimed to describe the spectrum of infectious aetiologies of acute neonatal illness categorised post-hoc using the 2015 WHO case definitions of critical illness, clinical severe infection, and fast breathing only. METHODS: Eligible infants were aged 0-59 days with possible serious bacterial infection and healthy infants enrolled in the ANISA study in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. We applied a partial latent class Bayesian model to estimate the prevalence of 27 pathogens detectable on PCR, pathogens detected by blood culture only, and illness not attributed to any infectious aetiology. Infants with at least one clinical specimen available were included in the analysis. We assessed the prevalence of these aetiologies according to WHO's case definitions of critically ill, clinical severe infection, and infants with late onset, isolated fast breathing. For the clinical severe definition, we compared the prevalence of signs by bacterial versus viral aetiology. FINDINGS: There were 934 infants (992 episodes) in the critically ill category, 3769 (4000 episodes) in the clinical severe infection category, and 738 (771 episodes) in the late-onset isolated fast breathing category. We estimated the proportion of illness attributable to bacterial infection was 32·7% in infants in the critically ill group, 15·6% in the clinical severe infection group, and 8·8% among infants with late-onset isolated fast breathing group. An infectious aetiology was not identified in 58-82% of infants in these categories. Among 4000 episodes of clinical severe infection, those with bacterial versus viral attribution had higher proportions of hypothermia, movement only when stimulated, convulsions, and poor feeding. INTERPRETATION: Our modelled results generally support the revised WHO case definitions, although a revision of the most severe case definition could be considered. Clinical criteria do not clearly differentiate between young infants with and without infectious aetiologies. Our results highlight the need for improved point-of-care diagnostics, and further study into neonatal deaths and episodes with no identified aetiology, to ensure antibiotic stewardship and targeted interventions. FUNDING: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation