First physician assistant in B.C.: monumental?
So with great fanfare, B.C.’s first physician assistant is about to start work. Let us put this in perspective.
There are 1,000 PAs in Canada. Per population, B.C. should have about 140. Some provinces have employed PAs for decades. PAs have been shown to increase access to care and to be cost effective. Surveys have shown that the majority of patients are perfectly content to be under the care of a PA or nurse practitioner.
A fundamental question needs to be addressed. Why is B.C. the last province to roll out this program? The PA model has worked amazingly well for years in Manitoba and Ontario. It is impossible for a provincial health minister in Canada not to have been aware over the years of the success of this model of care.
The only aspect of our government’s initiative that deserves this descriptor is the monumental tardiness in getting this program started. Yet another example of government remaining aloof to the collapsing health care crisis. Isn’t it interesting how several new health care initiatives have been announced in the 12 months before our next election in contrast to the swamp of inertia for many years?
Adrian Fine MD, FRCP
Victoria
Pay attention, drive in your ‘Green Zone’
A recent letter wrote about a pedestrian at the pedestrian light at the junction of the E&N Rail Trail and Lampson Street in Esquimalt.
I know the area well. There are unobstructed sightlines for the driver. Did they look ahead while driving? Did the driver scan ahead, looking for pedestrians and hazards such as a potentially occupied pedestrian crossing? Or was the driver solely focused on the three feet in front of their vehicle?
Driving is a responsibility, not a right. Pay attention and drive in your “Green Zone,” scanning from your vehicle to the horizon for all potential hazards. This is basic driving safety, taught by driving schools.
If one can’t operate a vehicle in a safe manner, then they shouldn’t be driving.
Patrick Ferguson
Victoria
Pandora Avenue: A trip down memory lane
Re: “Victoria needs to address its serious problems,” March 1.
Google Maps Street View is a great way to virtually tour neighbourhoods and locations anywhere in the world.
On a recent Street View tour of Victoria, I travelled virtually through the 900-block of Pandora Avenue and almost didn’t recognize it with its clean sidewalks and boulevards, green grass, leafy trees and not a tent in sight. Then I noticed the image was dated May 2014.
It was a shocking reminder of the way things used to be before we were hit with a tsunami of deteriorating social conditions, homelessness, vandalism, drug use, mental instability, assaults and so on.
There are hundreds of examples of this all over Greater Victoria: outdated Street View images of places and conditions that no longer exist. So whenever I get complacent about the need for change, I take a virtual trip down memory lane via Street View and its images from years past.
If only it didn’t make me so sad.
Sue Doman
Saanich
Hullo has better seats than B.C. Ferries does
Let’s hope that when B.C. Ferries replaces their fleet of major vessels they install comfortable high-backed seats.
If they aren’t sure what that might look like, I suggest they send one of their executives up to Nanaimo for a ride on the Hullo ferry to Vancouver, returning on a B.C. Ferries vessel for comparison.
Captain David Littlejohn
Nanaimo
Election editorial fears change
Re: “Electoral system is imperfect, but the best choice,” editorial, March 1.
While proportional representation gives a louder voice to minority yet mainstream views, it can also encourage fringe or splinter groups. The editorial is full of fear. If we, as people, never tried anything new and took a chance on the future, we would still be living on the same standards as the Middle Ages.
It is usually a trait of human nature to examine new things and new systems.
Instead of looking at the wrongs of what might happen, why not look at what is wrong now? Upon identifying what is wrong, then let’s look at how to make things better.
The editorial suggests that since the FPTP is what we have, leave it alone because we are afraid of what might happen. Why rock the boat and change anything?
Most modern western democracies have moved beyond the FPTP — France, Germany, Australia, Chile — but the editorial is saying, let’s not change.
Robert Townsend
Saanich
The property tax conundrum
On one hand, we have thousands of residents complaining about ever-increasing taxes, especially property taxes. On the other hand, we have a huge number of folks demanding more and better government services, including housing, medical care and the elimination of potholes.
I am a senior who was attacked twice in downtown Victoria. I also witnessed a couple of other people being assaulted. I watched several drug deals go down on the corner of Fort and Douglas and saw people shoot up.
I now avoid the city centre completely. Apparently, so do the police. I could never find a police officer downtown when I looked for one.
I would gladly pay higher property taxes for an increased police presence.
Cheera J. Crow
Brentwood Bay
Hate crime bill reeks of selective enforcement
Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani mentioned Jews and Muslims in reference to the groups that would be protected by the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada under Bill C-63.
However, he made no mention of Christians, who are by most metrics the most persecuted religion in the world, according to the PEW Research Center and other reputable organizations.
Setting aside the infringement upon our freedom of expression, it appears that the stage is being set for selective enforcement of said legislation. Will the minister of justice be willing to identify the recent arson of dozens of churches across Canada as a “hate crime”?
Michael Lilly
Duncan
TV is patients’ only stimulation
Re: “Forget the TVs,” letter, Feb. 23.
My 92-year-old mother has been hospitalized in a B.C. hospital since October awaiting long-term-care placement.
She has moved rooms often. One day, she moved four times and has spent many days and nights in the hallway. Her roommates, male and female, experience the same as she does.
She caught COVID while admitted and spent time in isolation. She is definitely not eating first-class food, rarely has the same nurse from one day to the next, is showered every 10-14 days, has hired private physio to help her stay mobile and has not had a TV that works since her admission.
She is one of 26 people in her small community waiting for long-term care. She might be half way up the list, so is looking at possibly five more months waiting in an acute-care setting. Many of these elderly patients are no longer able to read and have few if any visitors or family nearby.
Of course, the TVs should be maintained. It is often the only form of entertainment, information and stimulation.
Janet Snelgrove
Nanaimo
Seniors are the forgotten generation
Recently more and more news items are focusing on the outrageous rents that retirement homes are charging seniors for their services.
I believe that it is past time for the government to step in and solve this problem or we will witness a whole generation of our citizens no longer able to pay these exorbitant rates and end up joining the already overwhelming population of homeless.
John Logan
Courtenay
Same mismanagement, different doctor
I am an actively practising family physician in B.C. and have worked here for 35 years. To state that health care in Canada is a mess would be a gross understatement.
In 2004, the federal government spent a good deal of taxpayer dollars to host a massive Health Accord with all provincial counterparts in health management attending. A comprehensive document was produced and a lot of attention was given to primary care.
Unfortunately, the advice which the respective health ministers so meticulously outlined was never instituted by themselves in restructuring primary care.
For 20-plus years, the formula to correct primary care has been evident — and simply ignored.
Instead of adopting the advice from this accord, Premier David Eby has now resorted to openly soliciting family physicians from the U.K. to come to B.C. to work.
Instead of correcting the fundamental problems in health management, he is simply adding more fuel to the fire by poaching more warm bodies from other countries to work our broken system.
In the past two years, family physicians in B.C. have had a lot of money thrown their way in order to mollify them and quiet their voices.
If you think this is going to make it easier for you to find a family physician you will be sadly mistaken. Because the fundamental organizational structure of primary care has not been addressed, and because the fundamental deliverables have not been defined, it will be business as usual.
The only change is that you may be seen by a foreign-trained physician who has been unethically taken from their home country to serve you inside a desperately mismanaged system here at home.
Robert H. Brown M.D., C.C.F.P.
North Saanich
High-risk athletes should pay more
Given our health care crisis, people who choose to engage in high-risk sports should be required to pay for additional health insurance in the likely event they injure themselves. We have seen too many with permanent disabilities from sporting activities.
People who choose to subject themselves to injury in sports should not be able to saturate the rationed health care wait lines for treatment. Many aging folks and injured workers have arthritis, cancer/tumours and other bone/joint problems needing desperate attention. More often than not they have to wait, or are bumped by countless athletes young and old with injuries that take priority over them.
In a world where patients are dying in ER wait rooms and/or are in line for surgery for years, sporting is not the priority. This should be a general public consensus and understanding. Entertainment should not be first.
While we are free to choose to engage in high-risk competitive sports, the government should mandate health insurance requirements for those who do. The taxpayer and the patient should not have to pay the cost (even with their life) because of those who choose to subject themselves to serious injury in team sports.
David R. Carlos
Saanichton
Why things go wrong in B.C.
The Province of British Columbia is living so far in its own past that by the time something new arises that needs urgent action, it takes the government nearly 40 years to change outdated legislation and even longer to act.
This cycle continues over and over, leaving society at risk of chaos and crime while outdated legislation created by politicians “A long time ago and far far away” out of touch with reality continues to cause economic chaos, rising homelessness and crime, and costing lives, all of which could be saved if the government didn’t continue to function in an archaic bureaucracy so outdated that only a long-dead Middle Ages king could understand.
James Cooper
Victoria
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