Pronunciation is important!
So, Victoria council has changed the name of Trutch Street. Whether or not you support the change, the real truth is that most people will pronounce the new name as “suet” or “suit.”
Alanne Gibson
pronounced uh-LAN (IPA: ə‘læn)
Victoria
Those shopping malls could become housing
With just a few clicks in the July 12 edition of the Times Colonist, a reader could hop from ongoing coverage of “the housing shortage” to the observation that “an industry conference recently predicted that some shopping centres could close in the coming decade.”
And there we have it. Tear down the larger shopping malls since they will crumble to online shopping, and develop said properties into residential complexes.
Certainly there would be challenges. It may work in some instances and not in others.
Attorney General and Housing Minister David Eby, touted as possibly the next premier of B.C., wants to address the housing shortage with a big stick.
Maybe looking to creative solutions like this while working with local governments, instead of angering and alienating them with threats, is the better alternative for Eby and his cabinet colleagues.
Paul Walton
Nanaimo
Annual checkup should be a basic right
A member of our family booked what used to be called an “annual medical checkup.” He used to get a full going-over every couple of years until COVID struck.
That was how his high blood pressure and cholesterol were discovered and treated, now with ongoing followup. This has prevented a possible heart attack or stroke, with the extremely high costs of specialists, treatment, hospital care and long-term care if he had been incapacitated.
Imagine his surprise when he was charged $243 for the checkup because, he was told, MSP no longer feels they are needed and doesn’t cover it!
He could afford to pay for what amounts to this two-tiered medical treatment, which our government has refused surgeons to operate under, saying it would not then be universal health care, but would be two-tiered.
But how many people would not book a full checkup because they couldn’t afford it — and indeed are not even aware of this MSP rule?
Surely this is a matter between a medical practitioner and his patient, not the government deciding what is necessary medically. Imagine the silent killers that go untreated — diabetes, hypertension, shortness of breath, breast and lung cancers and others — until it is too late.
The eventual repercussions and costly drain on our overworked, beleaguered, failing medical system are astronomical compared to a $234 full checkup that should be covered at least every two years.
Yes, many might not “bother” with a full physical, but in the past, proactive people have had health issues found and treated before they spiral out of control, thus saving the taxpayers millions.
Barbara Zielinski
RN, retired
Victoria
Invest outside Canada to get new doctors
Many immigrants to Canada have doctor degrees in their home countries which are not recognized in Canada, so are taking other jobs instead of practising here.
Would it make sense for a country like ours to consider investing in medical schools in the countries where student doctors are training, with the intent to come to Canada?
The schools are already there, which would mean they could have an offering of a Canadian or U.S. content program, subsidized by us, for those intending to immigrate and practice here.
This way, when they get here – they are coming anyway – they are ready to do the job they signed up for and love. We need them!
Mace Porcher
Victoria
Health minister should increase the offer
Re: “No takers yet for $25,000 new-MD signing bonus,” July 5.
Why isn’t Health Minister Adrian Dix giving new doctors what they want?
New doctors have made their demands exceedingly clear. They don’t want the headaches of running a small business required by fee-for-service practice. They don’t want to be responsible for managing and paying overhead costs.
They want to earn a decent living with the opportunity to course-correct in future depending on their experience in practice.
New doctors have looked over the minister’s recent contract offer and found it wanting for these very same reasons and the complexity of these arrangements. This leaves roughly $60 million on the table.
It is high time for the minister to use these funds to create salaried positions where family doctors can provide the team-based care they are calling for in-group practices with allied health professionals.
I ask that Dix start by establishing a new salaried clinic in the Western Communities where there are an estimated 4,000 people who recently lost access to basic primary care provided under the fee-for-service system.
The terms for salaried doctors have already been agreed with the Doctors of B.C. These include generous wages and paid vacation, guaranteed paid administrative time, reimbursement for malpractice insurance and licensing fees, a handsome benefits package and a defined benefits pension plan.
No overhead. No business smarts needed.
Please, Minister Dix, tweak your offer.
Dr. Steve Gray
Victoria
Two countries, two views on guns
As we struggle to understand the complexity of our U.S. neighbour’s attitudes towards guns, I am reminded of a shocking discovery.
In the 1990s, when I won a Victoria Harbourside Rotary international scholarship to the Philippines as part of a team with three other women, one of them was an American.
This particular Rotary district covered Canada and the U.S. While the three Canadians on the team were repulsed to be in the presences of gun-wielding “guards” in many public locations in the Philippines, our American teammate was perplexed by our attitudes.
She said the guns “made her feel safe.” She could not understand our abhorrence of the potential violence that guns represented to us, any more than we could understand her perspective.
It was clear to me that her feelings of safety in the presence of guns was as deeply ingrained in her mythology as our feelings were ingrained in our mythology.
It was quite a stalemate on cultural attitudes: ultimately we both saw ourselves to be people who desired peace — although we wanted to achieve it via very different means.
I am aware of my bias, but it seemed to me that the Canadians’ hope was rooted in a belief in the potential goodness of humanity; you don’t always need to threaten with guns to persuade people to do the right thing.
Our American teammate’s was rooted in a lack of that belief. I expect my American teammate would call my perspective naive.
What can you do? We see the world differently. We still had fun on the team together.
Thelma Fayle
Victoria
All-Black army unit had Salt Spring brothers
Re: “PM apologizes to all-Black army unit,” July 10.
The men of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, which was based in Nova Scotia, came from all across Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean to fight for Canada.
Two of the men who served in the ballation were direct descendants of the first Black settlers on Salt Spring Island. The two were brothers, Robert Clark Whims and James Douglas Whims.
They were born on Salt Spring and enlisted in the battalion in October 1916. James died in April 1918 and is buried in the military cemetery in Etaples, France. Robert returned home, and died in the veterans hospital in 1966.
Fran Morrison
B.C. Black History Awareness Society
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