Monopoly is a failure, but we are addicted
Re: “Benign neglect is destroying Canada’s health system,” commentary, June 15.
As a practising physician from 1963 to 2006 I quickly recognized, as the heading suggests, that the article had more to do with health-care systems than with actual patient care.
If I were to address the many issues Ken Fyke raises I would term my article “Malignant action on the part of 91原创 governments, over the past 55 years, destroying health care in Canada.”
Fyke stressed that 91原创s wanted and still want “fairness and equity in healthcare for all 91原创s.”
Why did he think that making the health-care system a monopoly in the hands of the government would achieve that end?
These are the same governments that have many competing priorities with budgets that consistently fall short and must rely on raising taxes to address the shortfall.
Perhaps what 91原创s were looking for was a public system that provided public equivalent or better healthcare than a private parallel system, and not the monopoly that he supports.
Yes, as he states, 50 years ago health care in Canada was rated as the best in the world.
That was shortly after “the system” was made a monopoly in the hands of the government in 1967 and before the “system” became the priority and health care and the medical profession became the casualties.
The commentary states that “having more doctors will not equip them with needed skills nor enable them to provide services 24 hours a day or seven days per week.”
Why not? Fifty years ago a group of 18 family doctors in south Calgary did exactly that. There was always a family physician on call 24 hours a day on a rotation schedule, a clinic was open every day of the year except Christmas Day, the clinic had a cast room, suture room, x-ray facility, lab facility, pharmacist, optometry and psychologist.
Many of these services were supported by our fee-for-service model but as the fee schedules rarely kept up with inflation and more of the government “system” rules mandated, services were discontinued.
It would seem that our monopolistic health-care system has become a powerful idealistic addiction. It fails us from a physical and mental health perspective, a societal perspective, and economic perspective, but we still demand it.
Al Wilke
Salt Spring Island
Please tell us more about those nine countries
Re: “Benign neglect is destroying Canada’s health system,” commentary, June 15.
Ken Fyke says Canada rates 10th of the world’s richest 11 countries with nine countries outperforming Canada in health care and the U.S. is doing worse.
The article is good but it uses comparison with the U.S. to warn of a two-tier system and doesn’t provide any information on the systems in the nine countries that do better than us.
For years, whenever health care reform is mentioned, critics say, “but we don’t want to be like the U.S.!” And reform is dismissed again and again.
It’s time to ignore comparisons with the U.S. and look at those other nine countries.
Amy Williams
Qualicum Beach
Meaningful reform needed in health care
Re: “Benign neglect is destroying Canada’s health system,” commentary, June 15.
With one exception I agree with Ken Fyke’s commentary. (Full disclosure: I worked with Ken on the Victoria Health Project when I was Medical Health Officer in the Capital Regional District and subsequently for a year as VP for Senior’s Health, before taking on the role as Provincial Health Officer in 1999).
The exception is the characterization of the neglect as “benign.”
Commissioned expert report after commissioned expert report has, over the past 50 years, recommended reforms to health care that emphasize disease prevention and health promotion, the creation of primary care networks and enhanced, coherent, community-based management of chronic diseases.
Published, high-quality evidence supporting these recommendations has been available for at least this length of time.
We have also known for decades that a significant majority of newly graduating family physicians have clearly expressed a preference for alternatives to fee-for-service physician-only practice.
Governments of every persuasion and the medical societies representing physicians have signally failed, in the main, to respond effectively, either to the evidence or to would-be-practitioners’ preferences.
I respectfully submit that this neglect was far from benign and join with Ken in calling for meaningful, evidence-based, reform.
Dr. Perry Kendall
CM OBC MBBS MHSc FRCPC LLD(Hon)
More densification is not the solution
Adrian Raeside’s June 14 cartoon is a poignant reminder of the well-meaning, but ill-conceived mandate from the NDP government that all jurisdictions have to accommodate more people by means of densification, relaxed rules for rentals and condominiums, and speeded up building approvals.
The cartoon shows a middle-aged couple, with the husband noting that the effects of forced densified housing on communities “has resulted in Victoria losing its unique charm,” saying “Let’s move to Oak Bay”; then his wife responds, “This is Oak Bay” while they stand surrounded by a sea of charmless, box-like high-rises.
In 1842, James Douglas of the Hudson’s Bay Company and his surveyor landed on southern 91原创’s Island, which we today call Victoria and Saanich.
Douglas described it as “the most picturesque and decidedly the most valuable part of the Island that we had the good fortune to discover.” Victoria had safe harbour which offered protection from raging winter storms and a mild Mediterranean climate sheltered by the Olympic Mountains.
Much of the area we call Saanich (indigenous: “place of fertile soil”) was kept intact by periodic burning by Indigenous peoples, to enhance their important carbohydrate food supply of Camas plants. It was a perfect settlement area for agriculture and as a central hub for the fur trade.
We need to realize that densification is no solution to the problem of creating homes for the homeless, addicted and unemployables, or for the priced-out missing middle, the young, or retirees, or for increasing numbers of emigrants, immigrants, and refugees.
High-rises are becoming the self-made isolation cells for the rich, with real estates agencies hawking their wares as “good investment” opportunities.
And our local chambers of commerce still adhere to the notion of limitless growth with no limits as our planet marks the new geologic era some are calling the “Plasticene” Charm: We won’t know what’s there until it’s gone.
Thor Henrich
Victoria
TC letters give hope of intelligent life
Recently, a friend remarked that he is still an avid subscriber to the Times 91原创, even though Jack Knox has retired, and is so because of the letters that appear from time to time. It gives him glimmers of hope that intelligent life might still be present on this planet.
I was stuck by one letter that recently hypothesized a possible decrease in human IQ due to the recent alignment of the moon and the sun. Reflecting back on a geophysics course I took many years ago, unquestionably there are gravitational effects and lunacy has certainly been attributed to moon phases for centuries, so the ideas are not entirely without merit.
However, reading that commentary in depth and the list of evidence cited therein, I was drawn to what I thought was one major shortcoming, namely the failure to mention Health Minister Adrian Dix’s pronouncement of his intention to visit all ER facilities in the province.
For what purpose, I asked myself? Might that be attributed to solar-lunar alignment and its relationship to depressed IQ?
I was greatly relieved to read the last letter of the day that addressed that very shortcoming quite succinctly.
While I don’t have a basement in which to retire with my tin hat until celestial bodies change their relative positions and IQ improves, I have to share my friend’s appreciation for the TC, as letters such as those give me a rational basis for optimism that some intelligent life is still extant.
James P. Crowley
North Saanich
Spreading the word about EV advantages
I’m really glad to see the new local column on EVs in the Friday TC. I love the idea of informing people of the advantages of EVs while busting myths about them.
Happily, there is already high use of, and demand for, EVs in this area and in B.C.
In the midst of the climate crisis, the more hype for electric vehicles (and the less for conventional ones) in our news sources, the better.
Hannah Mitchell
Victoria
Cataract surgery is just around corner
Wait times for hospital surgery?
I was informed Friday morning that my cataract surgery is scheduled for mid-January 2024. That’s only seven months away! Just a bit down the road and around the corner.
John Vanden Heuvel
Victoria
Renovate the square, but no splash park
Re: “Centennial Square refresh a step closer,” June 16.
I agree Centennial Square needs some upgrading.
The entrance to the square from Douglas Street is very closed off. I believe it could benefit greatly from removing that large portion of grass to make it an open and inviting entrance from Douglas Street.
However, I do not agree with a splash park. These belong in a neighbourhood park, not a downtown city square. This is an area for public gatherings and events, with possibly a weekly market to showcase our city.
I am also dismayed that our mayor and city council have made the decision to remove our fountain, without public consultation once again. It was a gift from our neighbouring municipalities on Victoria’s centennial.
Please protect this piece of art. It should have heritage designation.
Why would this be removed? If all of Europe removed buildings, fountains and places of historical interest because they were old and replaced them with more “modern” pieces, they would end up being like any ho hum city in North America. Nobody would visit.
Please protect our fountain. It has been our meeting place for more than 50 years.
Linda Skalenda
Victoria
Population jumped 50 per cent since 1986
Fun fact. Canada crossed the 40-million-person threshold on Friday. To put that in perspective, in 1948 — the beginning of the baby boomer era — the population was one-third of today’s number, at 13 million people. In 1986, Expo year, the population was 26 million. That’s an increase today of more than 50 per cent since 1986.
So please stop blaming the baby boomers for the high price of homes, the lack of medical facilities, the lack of doctors, the lack of proper transportation corridors, the lack of housing in general.
Canada has been putting population growth over population quality of life. Sadly, at this rate, things will never get better as we are growing faster than we can accommodate. It’s kind of like building a 100-room hotel and taking 125 reservations — somebody’s gonna be left standing on the sidewalk with nowhere to go.
So to all the new immigrants I say: Welcome to Canada, if you can find somewhere to live.
Doug Coulson
Saanich
Cyclists pay their way, motorists are subsidized
Re: “Museum loses parking, cyclists get a new lane,” letter, June 16.
Why are motorists entitled to subsidies? There is no such thing as “free parking.” The costs are incurred by someone.
The owners and users of cars should pay for the spaces they occupy. Remember, the private automobile is parked for 95 per cent of its useful period of time.
Another interesting stat: the majority of bike commuters are in the higher socio-income bracket.
Generally with taxes, the more money one makes, the more tax one pays. Cyclists pay at least their share of taxes, too.
Robert Townsend
Saanich
Madness and ignorance not the right choice
Re: “Larger school districts are dropping police,” letter, June 15
So, the esteemed professor from Toronto took time from her busy schedule to lecture us rubes “out west” on police liaisons in public schools. She concludes her letter by stating that the Toronto school board ended the police liaison program, followed by the Winnipeg school board doing the same.
Therefore, the Victoria school board should follow their lead.
To sum up her argument, she states: “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is not madness — it’s ignorance.”
She does indeed hit the nail on the head. To follow in the footsteps of the Toronto and Winnipeg school boards on a misguided and fallacious ideological action to stop the police liaison program in Victoria is indeed, in her own words, madness and ignorance.
Peter Davis
James Bay
E-bike rebate might create problems
I have commuted by bike in Greater Victoria for 20-plus years. The only power source I have ever used are my own legs.
Navigating dangerous e-bike riders on the Lochside and Galloping Goose trails is, unfortunately, a daily occurrence for me. Hearing that the province is now offering them rebates, from my own tax dollars, for their bike purchases is a kick to the teeth.
Sarah Nelson
Saanich
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