Get to work fixing our health-care system
I am retired, but have operated successful businesses in Victoria over the past 35 years. Through my life in B.C. since 1986, I have enjoyed great health care in hospital, doctors’ offices and clinics.
My daughter was treated for ovarian cancer over several years and lost her life, notwithstanding exemplary care from 1998 to 2000 at the Vancouver General Hospital and the cancer agency there. I have had two knee replacements and some heart problems attended to over the years.
In recent years, our health-care system has quite simply fallen apart. People cannot get primary care and even serious conditions like cancer are subject to impossible waits and life-threatening delays.
This situation needs an immediate response and a plan of action from Health Minister Adrian Dix. I understand his preoccupation with COVID, but he cannot simply ignore the broad and dire dilapidation of our entire system of care.
I could travel almost anywhere in the developed world and get better and more immediate care than exists here in B.C.
As a businessman, I have faced many crises and almost insurmountable problem times. When one is responsible for the operation of a business and the livelihoods of employees and the customer needs, all stops are pulled and every effort put to the redress needed.
It is time for Dix and his officials to get busy fixing our health-care system.
Get working on it! Get focused! And make it happen now! There is no time for studies and endless committees. Analyze and execute the needed changes quickly.
Brian Higgins
Saanich
What are we doing about health care?
I am terrified. Early in the morning, after two weeks of sickness and a wicked night with a fevering 11-month-old, I hopped into my car to see if I could stand in line somewhere to secure a spot for a doctor to see my son.
A futile mission at best.
To the phone I went, in an attempt to book a spot at our local urgent primary care centre only to be told, after waiting on hold, that within 17 minutes of the clinic phone lines opening, the clinic and the waitlist was booked for the day.
Try Medimap, they said … really? That’s the best we can do?
Thank God for UPCCs, but they are not enough, and certainly not the answer to this crisis.
Like many Victorians, I am without a primary care provider and I am terrified to think about what the future of primary health care will look like in our city, not to mention our province and country, over the next few years.
Doctors leaving family practices and clinics closing are strong predictors of what’s to come.
We are deep into a crisis that has been simmering for years within a system that does not support the financial or professional sustainability of community-based family practitioners we have come to rely on to meet our health-care needs.
This slowly eroding crisis is sure to leave us more vulnerable and sicker as individuals and communities. What are we gonna do about it?
Chris Forester
Vic West
Medical help is ready, but we have barriers
Are we seeking to attract qualified nurses and doctors, or erecting barriers, both financial and emotional, to convince these professionals that the road to success is strewn by bureaucratic barriers?
There is no doubt that there are a vast number of nurses and doctors, all fully qualified, who need to go through unnecessary steps for their qualifications to be recognized here.
The answer is simple. Have doctors and nurses with experience in their field, take one examination in the field of their proficiency.
Bureaucracy begets bureaucracy. That is truly the only reason that foreign medical professionals are treated as unqualified at the inception of their dreams to come to our province and fulfil the work they have been trained in.
A new process must take place. Efficiencies will certainly result from a streamlined procedure.
As it stands, we are not only losing talent, but we do a great disservice to all qualified medical personnel who are willing and ready to tackle the growing population that has no access to these professionals and who frequently already have years of experience.
Eric J. Ronse
Shawnigan Lake
Cyclist hit by gravel truck — can anyone help?
About two weeks ago, I was struck from behind while riding my bicycle on the paved shoulder of the Pat Bay Highway between Island View Road and East Saanich Road.
The gravel truck that hit me continued on the shoulder for about 100 metres, stopped for a few seconds, and drove on. Fortunately, another driver stopped and helped me get the bike out of the ditch.
Some lights and a pannier bag were destroyed and the steering tiller was twisted by the force of the tire pushing on my arm. A bit of internal shakeup issues, a massive bruise on my forearm and a tire mark on the frame of the bike were the only other damages.
ICBC policies seem to encourage hit and runs, with the injured active transportation person to absorb 100 per cent of the cost.
Unfortunately, without a positive ID of the truck, the police can do nothing. Is there a possibility someone has dashcam footage of what happened?
The Central Saanich police have a file on the incident and any report to them will be greatly appreciated.
Norm Ryder
Central Saanich
Thank you for your service, Sharmarke
Victoria Coun. Sharmarke Dubow has announced his intention not to seek re-election.
As an immigrant myself, I felt his interest in helping to create a better community was sincere. But he got himself pulled by the wrong crowd.
Building a new city does not mean obliterating the old one. Working to help vulnerable people doesn’t mean to alienate all others
Creating an inclusive environment doesn’t mean rejecting those whose views are not shared by you or your group.
That was the problem. Your intentions were good, your execution not so much. I applaud your decision to leave now, in your terms, and not wait until it is clear, via the elections, that you were on the wrong end of the popular vote.
And despite how much I disagree with most of the work that was done during your tenure, I thank you for your service.
I am sure you will find a better place to support your fellow Victorians.
And perhaps, free of outdated and confrontational politics, you will succeed on your personal vision to make this a better place to live.
Daniel Sanchez
Victoria
Facing challenges with accreditation
I was sorry to read the story of the long haul for the nurse to get accreditation in B.C. It reminded me a bit of my own journey to become a professional engineer here in 1979.
I was coming all the way from Manitoba, but the association here advised me that B.C. standards were much higher than in other provinces so no reciprocal agreement existed.
My wait for accreditation took in the order of a couple of months.
When I was approved for membership and was sent my certificate, it took the folks with such high standards three attempts to issue a certificate with my name correctly noted.
The first was issued in my father’s name (he was never an engineer), the second was misspelled.
Les Swain
Malahat
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