Ambulance is $80, helicopter is free
Recently a friend needed an ambulance to take her husband about 10 kilometres to the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in a medical emergency.
She has been billed $80 for the ambulance.
Three guys from Manitoba needed to be rescued from a mountain near Campbell River, as they were too exhausted to get back down, and a search and rescue helicopter went back and forth several times, and there were rescuers coming and going all night.
Those three from Manitoba do not have to pay anything as 鈥渢his is a government-funded program.鈥� Wow.
Next time my friend鈥檚 husband has a problem, just drive him up a mountain and get a government helicopter to come and get him. No charge!
Eric G. Robinson
Nanaimo
Maybe a wind shelter will help Clover Point
With all the letters and reporting on 颅Clover Point I fear that, amongst all sturm und drang surrounding this issue, we have missed an opportunity for some lateral thinking.
Too windy! No one will use the viewpoint unless they can sit in a car!
I鈥檓 neither an engineer nor an architect, but perhaps a partial solution would be some sort of wind shelter.
Peter Krismer
Saanich
Cleve Dheensaw is our own gold medalist
I am sure I鈥檓 joined by all Times 91原创 readers in applauding the work of Cleve Dheensaw in the sports section during the Olympics coverage.
I continue to be amazed at the quantity 鈥� not to mention quality 鈥� of Cleve鈥檚 reporting, often three or four pieces a day and mainly focusing on Olympic athletes and/or coaches from B.C. and particularly Victoria.
He has obviously spent hours each day (and night) researching, TV-viewing the Olympic events, interviewing and ultimately writing excellent and entertaining stories for the newspaper 鈥� while at the same time continuing to report on the local soccer and hockey teams and other Island sports stories.
Cleve, recently elected to the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame for his work, should get a special award from the Times 91原创 for his outstanding work these past weeks. He has been a gold medallist in sportswriting!
Tim Ryan
Victoria
Australian method might help service
During the pandemic, my wife and I have made it a point to support local businesses and go out for a meal every week.
Now that restaurants/pubs are opening up, the new challenge for them is the lack of staffing preventing them from offering full menus, seating and hours.
An idea to consider to help them through this challenging time may be to operate like pubs that we frequented in Australia back in the days we could travel there.
Instead of having people waited on at their tables, customers go directly to the bar and/or food order window to get their beverages and food and pay at that time. They are given a number or notified when their food is ready or served to you if your number is displayed at the table. If they want another drink, they go to the bar and pay each time.
This seemed to work very efficiently and required no wait time to receive your final bill when you are ready to leave, allowing staff to focus on service and not having to take potential abuse from customers.
As for tipping, this can be accommodated by the customer adding it to the bill when paying or the establishment placing a tip jar at the bar.
Please be patient and kind to staff at all businesses and continue to support them.
Larry Hall
Victoria
Vaccination should be required
The B.C. Care Providers Association and Terry Lake are to be commended for their support of health care worker vaccination.
Vaccination of staff (including physicians in both hospitals and other care positions) has long been needed and should be a requirement of the role.
Just as WorkSafe B.C. mandates hard hats and steel-toed boots to protect workers, society has an obligation to protect patients who have little say about who cares for them.
Health care worker vaccination for COVID-19 and influenza must be mandatory, unless medical reasons prevent it. Influenza, like COVID, is a respiratory virus that has many varied strains and should not be trivialized.
Influenza was the cause of the 1918 pandemic that killed otherwise healthy young people in 24-48 hours. How soon we forget!
Fern Davey
North Saanich
Emissions facts needed to help this discussion
Re: 鈥淣atural gas will help us reduce our emissions,鈥� commentary, July 31.
The information I have found (thenarwhal.ca, Pembina.org, wilderness.org, epa.gov) indicate although natural gas burns 50 per cent cleaner than coal, our LNG Canada project will be using fracked gas, which will have a much smaller advantage over coal when all the upstream CO2 and methane gases are included in the calculations.
I find the destruction of water used for hydraulic fracturing a bigger concern. Once the water has been used to fracture the rock below it can never be used for drinking or irrigation ever. LNG Canada indicates it will require 260 new well pads per year using 2 million gallons of water per pad, each year for 20 years.
When you combine all the GHG created by this LNG Canada project and Site C, which was built to power this money-losing venture, how will we every reduce our provincial climate emissions?
We get stuck with all the environmental damage, much higher electricity costs from Site C and very little in profit for giving away another of our resources, thanks to the very generous incentives negotiated by our NDP government.
Bruce Clarke
Victoria
Dear Times 91原创: Stop running Gwyn Morgan
The Times 91原创 should do us all a favour and stop running Gwyn Morgan鈥檚 columns. The latest offers his brilliant solution for global warming: sell more gas!
What else would you expect from an oil man, someone Maclean鈥檚 called 鈥渢he most powerful man in Canada鈥檚 oilpatch鈥� in 2003 and who vehemently opposed the Kyoto Accord? Why should we listen to his advice on solving a problem he helped to create?
The oil industry has known about the 鈥済reenhouse effect鈥� for decades, but it fought to maximize profits while casting doubt on, and denying, the science. We now have oil executives such as Morgan to thank for runaway climate change.
Morgan dismisses carbon taxes and alternative energy, and says subsidizing green power is a waste of public funds. If governments around the world, including Canada鈥檚, hadn鈥檛 wasted public funds subsidizing the fossil-fuel industry, maybe there would be no climate crisis. It鈥檚 painful to think about.
We must hold accountable the industries and people who have ravaged the planet for their own gain. None of us, and none of our descendants, can escape the devastating impacts of climate change now.
The future of life as we know it is a question mark. Yet 91原创 media, including the Times 91原创, continue to give Gwyn Morgan a pulpit to promote fossil fuels.
Hannah Mitchell
Victoria
Morgan points the way for our tomorrow
I must say I am astounded and shocked by certain replies to the recent Gywn Morgan commentary that clearly have no concept of the real world. But not surprised.
Morgan鈥檚 article intelligently captures where we are today, and where we need to go forward tomorrow.
John L. Krysa
Oak Bay
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