Responsible behaviour can be a challenge
The other day I was driving and listening to a CBC program on the climate summit with all the usual warnings regarding fossil fuels and massive consumption thereof.
Then it struck me. I was in my internal-combustion vehicle (in my defence, a subcompact) nodding my head in approval at all the good points being made regarding remedial action and responsible behaviour.
Kinda like being at an AA meeting and surreptitiously taking swigs out of brandy-filled hip flask.
It’s OK, though, as I’m thinking of quitting driving tomorrow.
Or maybe getting an electric vehicle.
Oh wait, just finished watching a documentary on the negative environmental impact of lithium mining (sigh).
I wonder what kind of deal I can get on an F-250 pickup truck?
Sandy Szabo
North Saanich
Let pharmacists refill prescriptions
Like many others, our family doctor recently retired. I was quite surprised when our pharmacy refused to refill an existing prescription as our doctor was no longer licensed.
I was not expecting this, as the prescription still had more than six months before requiring renewal.
Several months ago we signed up to be attached to the North Quadra Urgent and Primary Care Centre, but that hasn’t happened and they don’t answer their phones.
I ended up getting a virtual appointment with a doctor in North Vancouver through Telus Health in a week’s time.
But why do I need to take up the time of a physician to simply refill a prescription that I have taken unchanged for years?
The doctor has never met me and probably will never meet me in person. I am sure that my pharmacist hasn’t checked with my now-retired doctor in the past before refilling my prescription.
Why can’t they be allowed to simply refill an existing prescription? A small change perhaps, but small changes do add up.
Phil Grewar
Saanich
Not all specialists are getting high pay
The many letter-writers about their difficulty finding a family doctor might be interested in the following.
As a senior specialist consultant physician, I deal with the problems besetting the delivery of medical services in B.C. on a daily basis. Some of the stories are heartbreaking.
However, most of the letters lack essential information. Chief among those is up-to-date awareness of the financial remuneration of physicians, often resulting in opinions that remuneration for “specialists” is much higher than that for family physicians.
The facts are that specialists who use procedures of one kind or another are high earners, greatly outpacing family doctors, and also those specialists who do not have procedures as part of their practice.
Included in that group are psychiatrists, rheumatologists, endocrinologists, neurologists, pediatricians, geriatricians and others. Their remunerations, comparing full-time practitioners, are similar to or less then those of family physicians.
Those specialists, together with family physicians, have been left far behind to where their remuneration is now one-third of what it was 35 years ago (in current-day dollars).
When a patient has an appointment with a family doctor, the latter is paid $31.62.
For a different perspective, I had a visit to my family dentist last week for a filling. After the 20-minute procedure, the bill was $296.
On returning to my office I saw several patients in follow-up, which took me as a specialist consultant in endocrinology 20 minutes per patient. My MSP remuneration was $62.03 per patient, slightly more than one-fifth of the dentist’s fee.
The fees paid to physicians are for their time, use of assistants and procedures. Is it any wonder that so many nonprocedural physicians are demoralized, depressed, feel underappreciated and can’t wait to get out of the system?
A predictable consequence has been the increased reliance on tests, investigations, referrals and prescriptions at great expense to the system, rather than having the time for in-depth history taking, physical examination and counselling, as the practioner is not provided with the time to use his/her training, knowledge and experience.
There are solutions to finding a family physician or getting timely specialized care. One increasingly popular one in Quebec is for physicians to opt out of the government-run system and have patients pay them privately at amounts of their choosing.
An alternative is to evaluate what other countries are doing about ensuring ready access to quality care for all citizens.
Dr. Gerald Tevaarwerk
Certificant in endocrinology
Victoria
Other fixes needed before privatization
I get a kick out of how people from the private sector, like Gwyn Morgan, think that the solution to the health-care problems is privatization. And then justify this nonsense by quoting reports from the Fraser Institute, not exactly an objective voice in the matter.
The present public system can work much better, but needs a major overhaul to accomplish that. The system is inefficient and wasteful.
Burned-out hospital medical staff call in sick, even if they’re just fed up, and are back-filled by call-ins at time and a half.
The employee gets sick pay and the back-fill gets overtime pay, and the budget gets hammered. Managers fail to manage this, and it’s costing us millions. Managers seem petrified by the unions, and fail to manage staff for fear of grievances.
Systemic change is necessary. The health authorities are too top-heavy with managers and directors, when way more resources should be put on the front line.
There needs to be more public oversight, but the operations of health authorities are as opaque as can be.
Salaries are ridiculously high. There are no consequences. Managers are hired well before they have actual management skills, and the staff they manage do not respect them. You can imagine the outcome of that.
The emergency departments are full of non-emergencies and chronically short-staffed. Victoria hospitals built for a population of 300,000 now serve a population of 450,000. It’s all close to being jammed to a standstill.
Yes, a major overhaul is necessary. All this is happening under the noses of the Ministry of Health, whose minister likes to project the future as rosy and positive, while chaos and long waits occur on the front line.
The disconnect has never been wider between how senior management see things, and how they really are at the point of service delivery.
Brian Wilkes
Victoria
No longer revered, they leave their jobs
Oh, what a difference a day makes! A total of 3,325 nurses and health-care workers go from revered frontline workers to the whipping posts for the provincial government and vilified by the general population. Have we no common sense or dignity?
Donald Weston
Victoria
Moratorium needed on new development
The aggressiveness of residential development has changed downtown forever, as it is quickly approaching the likes of the West End of Vancouver.
Starlight Developments seems to want to go as high as possible with their towers in Harris Green. It seems that the first phase at 1045 Yates Street is a done deal of two towers of over 20 storeys.
These will be built beside a new building on the old site of Pluto’s Restaurant, and kitty-corner to a new condo being built at Yates and Cook.
The plan to change the entire Harris Green block of Yates Street between Quadra and Vancouver with even taller towers of 28 and 32 floors is so wrong, and must be stopped immediately.
The downtown corridor of new residential buildings has been built so close to each other that many suites only have views of other buildings, and the sun doesn’t shine on many of them due to close proximity. Just as it is in Vancouver.
The need for residential suites is apparent, but the need for “affordable” homes is skewed in the reasoning of what is considered “affordable” to the people who would want to live in a densely crowded corridor of condos and high-priced apartments.
The big part to consider is the lack of insight of amenities required for such a large influx of new citizens moving into downtown. Just because you build it, people will not move in if there are no schools, parks or doctors in the area.
The last to consider is the lack of hindsight in not having parking for automobiles, and I mean electric vehicles, which have the same carbon footprint as a bicycle.
Families will not move into buildings if they cannot have an electric car to ferry their broods about town.
Victoria council should put a moratorium on any new builds in downtown Victoria, for if this major project goes through, it will be a legacy that will not be looked at favourably in the future. Is it greed, or lack of hindsight driving this overzealous building boom?
Mur Meadows
Victoria
What will be done with the marine debris?
It is good to hear that at least a small fraction of the debris spilled in containers on the west coast is being collected. The recent report does not say how it will be disposed of.
Metal recycling can work well, but polyfoam, mentioned in reports, is liable to get dumped in landfills, ready to become a future problem.
We have a problem with polyfoam here in North Saanich, where large blocks cased in concrete have been lying for more than a year in at least three places in Saanich Inlet.
When will they be dealt with? And how?
Jim Gower
North Saanich
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