A nurse has been fired from a Canadian hospital after a video emerged showing a dying indigenous woman screaming in distress and being insulted by staff. Quebec Premier Francois Legault said the nurse’s remarks were “unacceptable” and “racist”. He said Joyce Echaquan’s death would be thoroughly investigated.

It is the latest in a series of incidents that have raised questions about systemic racism faced by Canada’s indigenous citizens. In 2015 a report found that racism against indigenous people in Canada’s healthcare system contributed to their overall poorer health outcomes, compared to non-indigenous Canadians. Ms Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, had gone to the Joliette hospital about 70km (45 miles) from Montreal suffering from stomach pains. The mother of seven filmed herself in her hospital bed screaming and calling for urgent help.(BBC)…[+]

The first person cured of HIV – Timothy Ray Brown – has died from cancer. Mr Brown, who was also known as “the Berlin patient”, was given a bone marrow transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to HIV in 2007.

It meant he no longer needed anti-viral drugs and he remained free of the virus, which can lead to Aids, for the rest of his life. The International Aids Society said Mr Brown gave the world hope that an HIV cure was possible.

Mr Brown, 54, who was born in the US, was diagnosed with HIV while he lived in Berlin in 1995. Then in 2007 he developed a type of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukaemia. His treatment involved destroying his bone marrow, which was producing the cancerous cells, and then having a bone marrow transplant. The transfer came from a donor that had a rare mutation in part of their DNA called the CCR5 gene.(BBC)…[+]