91Ô­´´

Conflicting demands hurting our health care

Re: “All those obstacles are hurting our health care,” editorial, June 2.

The editorial instills a sense of reality. The shortage in doctors is not going to go away soon, for avoidable and unavoidable reasons.

Removal of bureaucratic impediments, put in place to protect the B.C. public from fraud and incompetence, would allow perfectly competent foreign trained physicians to serve the people of this province, reducing the doctor shortage somewhat, but not entirely.

In the meantime, the demand for ­medical services grows, partly due to population growth, encouraged by our fine environment and the clamour for employees.

Overshadowing this is the uncomfortable fact that housing, possibly affordable for doctors (who can not or perhaps do not want to move here), is unaffordable for nearly all potential new patients who arrive in droves.

How governments of any stripe can reconcile these conflicting demands is difficult to imagine.

Boudewyn van Oort

Victoria

Many differences in medical training

Re: “All those obstacles are hurting our health care,” editorial, June 2.

The editorial states that the Colleges are protecting their own members from foreign competition. Rather, they are simply doing what they have been forced to do by 91Ô­´´ Human Rights tribunals, which is to treat all foreign doctors equally.

For many years, doctors from the U.K., U.S., Australia, and South Africa were given 91Ô­´´ licences without the requirement to pass exams or do extra training.

Foreign-trained doctors from other countries took the provincial colleges to court, arguing that this was discrimination and that all foreign-trained doctors should be treated as individuals, rather than being typecast based on their country of training.

Having worked in programs to assess foreign-trained doctors, I can tell you that the roles and competencies of a specialist or a family doctor vary widely across the world.

Rather than asking Premier David Eby to confront so-called vested interests, ask him to provide the resources to assess and upgrade more foreign-trained doctors who wish to practice in Canada.

Gisèle Bourgeois-Law MD (retired)

Oak Bay

We’re paying the price for medical cost-cutting

Re: “All those obstacles are hurting our health care,” editorial, June 2.

The issue with medical school training spaces was the fact those spaces were being taken up with foreign graduates that paid dearly for the opportunity whereas 91Ô­´´ graduates actually had to be paid while training. ­Governments financially benefited from allocating those spaces to foreign graduates.

The issue with family physicians was slightly more complex. Through the 1970s and 1980s, settlements negotiated with governments rarely kept up with inflation so overheads increased and take home pay decreased.

The result was family doctors started seeing more patients per hour, not taking on patients with complex care needs, and the introduction of walk-in clinics and hospitalists.

There was no need for “turf protection” since many doctors were closing their practices (not taking new patients), and the HMOs in the U.S.A. were recruiting 91Ô­´´ family physicians at an alarming rate.

In spite of the above, the cost of health care continued to take a larger and larger share of the government’s budget.

Waiting lists were not a political problem so it was then determined that the way to curtail rising health-care costs was to decrease the number of practicing physicians and acute care hospital beds.

After all, it was family physicians that were ordering costly investigations, referring to specialists, and putting patients in hospital beds.

Money could be saved by not increasing spaces in medical schools, decreasing hospital beds, and not being concerned about the drain of doctors and nurses to the United States.

Governments are grappling with the short-term and short-sighted approaches in the past to cost-control in our health-care system: Long waiting lists, scarce healthcare professionals, stacked up emergency departments, and if you don’t like it, you can be offered MAID.

Dr. Al Wilke

retired family doctor

Salt Spring Island

Oncologist driven away, and we all suffer

Re: “All those obstacles are hurting our health care,” editorial, June 2.

Finally, a well-researched editorial that correctly identifies the most important challenge to fixing our health care system: The B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons.

As a cancer survivor, I was treated by a professional oncologist with 13 years experience. He moved from England with his family to Victoria. He was a respected professional practising in the Victoria Cancer Clinic.

Following three years practice here, the College of Physicians and Surgeons demanded that he re-write professional examinations in all medical disciplines.

This would have required him to study subjects that had changed substantially. His alternative to months off work to do this was to sell his Victoria home and move back to England.

My pleas to the College and its directors to allow him to stay here were in vain. The response I received stated that they had no alternative, this was a regulation, but my layman’s review of the act, indicated otherwise.

This rigid policy sends strong negative messages to others interested in practising here.

No surprise that we are sending cancer patients to the U.S. due to the scarcity of professionals in our system.

Peter Daniel

Victoria

Common sense needed, not more ideology

I have always thought the school police liaison program invaluable, not only in dealing with “worrisome behaviours” and safety issues, as Victoria Police Chief Del Manak put it, but also in providing the kind of police contact with kids that helps to foster enduring positive interactions between youth and police.

I was therefore surprised to see board chair Nicole Duncan express the view that some students, and staff, do not feel safe with police in schools.

How does she know this? She hasn’t said what this opinion is based upon, and I must assume there is no evidence to support it, since the board also asks the provincial government to research the issue in the hopes that such evidence might appear.

I think a legislative body, even one as basic as a school board, should base its policy upon facts, not bare opinions that reveal a disturbing bias.

The Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association should be condemned for the same reason, stating that police should not be in schools until further research is done on the “potential harms and benefits to students.”

Why not leave the liaison officers in place until the research is done, if anyone other than the teachers and school board really thinks there is a need for it.

To me it looks as if ideology has taken the place of common sense, and it is the kids and the community in general who will suffer.

Robert Higinbotham

Oak Bay

Conflicting views about safety in our schools

Go figure! In the same week that schools are reporting that street gangs based in 91Ô­´´ are actively recruiting kids in schools all over the Capital Regional District, the Greater Victoria School Board decided to end the police school liaison program.

It doesn’t get any dumber than that.

Stu Shields

Saanich

Liaison officers remove risks from schools

Greater Victoria School Board chair Nicole Duncan said trustees had to consider the “trauma and harm” that police presence can mean for some students in schools.

Let’s define trauma and harm.

Trauma: The result from a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences.

Harm: Physical injury, especially that which is deliberately inflicted.

Those are serious incidents that would likely result in charges to individuals that commit such acts. Police liaison officers are trained to deal with those who perpetrate trauma and harm to individuals – not to be responsible for bringing this into schools.

The trustees need to give their heads a shake. Police liaison officers do the exact opposite – they work diligently to ensure students are informed of ways to avoid trauma and harm.

They are also there to provide support for students who may have experienced one or both. Gangs trying to recruit students are the ones who are most likely going to cause trauma and harm to young people.

Officers in the schools provide an added resource to ensure gang members remain out of schools and give students the truth behind what the gang members have to ‘offer’.

It defies logic, in my mind, why those overseeing the well-being of students in our schools make such a ridiculous decision – and unanimous.

Dave Hockley

retired principal

Victoria

A positive influence in local schools

Please tell me there were other reasons behind the Greater Victoria School Board decision to get rid of school liaison ­officers.

Otherwise I’m sure the next to go will be chemistry and math classes as they caused me lots of anxiety when I was at school.

Or maybe they’ll dump reading for those who are dyslexic because it brings attention to their issues.

And surely there will be no more gym classes to protect those with body issues not wanting to wear gym shorts.

When I see a police car anywhere I immediately think there is something bad going on there.

When I see a police car at a school, I think of the positive influence of officers in full uniform being see by, and interacting with students. Proactive educating.

A unanimous vote? Really hard to believe.

Chuck Pusateri

Victoria

Police officers help to bring safety to schools

I read with dismay that the Greater Victoria School Board has voted to end the police officer school liaison program.

One word should be front and centre in this discussion: safety.

Teachers, school staff and above all students deserve and have a right to be safe in school. Since when does providing “trauma-informed support and inclusive spaces for all students” by ending the police officer program make schools safer?

The police have warned about increased gang activity in schools, the opiod epidemic continues to worsen and students are in more danger than ever from these.

My daughter attended a very large high school in Calgary. Everyone in the school had to wear an identification lanyard with photo.

The school had a full-time police liaison officer who regularly walked the halls at class changes with other school staff. They kept their finger on the pulse of the school and were able to be proactive not reactive as issue may have arisen.

This was not traumatic. Parents, students and school staff felt safe.

Sadly there will be an incident whereby school safety will be compromised. I am certain the very people who want the police officers gone will want them back. It will be too late and they will only have themselves to blame.

Eva Eaton

Victoria

An excellent addition to classroom learning

I was very sad to see that the police ­liaison officers have been pulled from the schools of the Greater Victoria ­district.

Fear comes from lack of information about some thing or someone. If the students can interact with the police in a safe and friendly environment it may help them cope with any trauma that has been experienced or passed on second-hand to them.

The more we know about our fellow citizens the better we will be getting along with others (including the police). In my experience as a teacher, the police were an excellent addition to classroom learning.

Gail Branton

Saanich

Dog laws are needed because of a few owners

Yes, the vast majority of dog owners keep good care of their dogs off leash. Yes, a vast majority of dogs are not barking, leaping and lunging off leash. Yes, dog walking on trails or beach is therapeutic for both owner and dog.

Yes, a great many dog owners take care to pick up not only their dog’s poop, but other dogs’ little bagged presents left by the trail.

But that’s not why laws exist.

The laws exist for the very few whose dogs are running loose, barking, lunging, leaping, tearing after wildlife, getting tangled in bicycle wheels, pooping anywhere they please with no pick-up, and so on.

Those few aberrant one are reasons which drive laws. All it takes is one of such dog do it’s usual thing, then people will be saying “there oughta be a law…” or similar.

But by then, it will be too late. The damage will have been done.

I am in favour of such a leashing law. I am a former dog owner.

Even with such a law, it is still legal and possible to take your dog to a country road or trail to run freely. Bit more of an effort perhaps, but still possible.

Do you want to look ahead to where all dogs are leashed and you have to make more effort in dog walking? Or do you wish that all dogs are free to run, and you or your children or grandchildren are at greater risk?

Richard Kubik

Victoria

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