@ - Wednesday, May 1, 1991 - North Shore News J CONGDION WN, TROORS iN THe GULF TO CORRY OUT BIN DISPOSAL. TAICKY?..NAH..THIS- IS A SNAP... | USED TO WORK IN THE CANADIAN GONT. FEDERAL- PROVINCIAL "RELATIONS MINISTRY... NEWS VIEWPOINT | AIDS aid have died from AIDS; world-wide, che number of AIDS deaths is ap- proaching 350,900. Tie far in Canada 2,859 people But while too many of us are frozen into inaction by these cold statistics, a group of local artists has chosen to do sumething to ezse the AIDS nightmare. Seventy-two visual artists, including a handful from the North Shore, have do- nated original works to be auctioned off at a three-week exhibit, This Is Not A One Night Stand, that opens tonight at the Pitt Gallery. Proceeds from the benefit will go to support local AIDS organizations, which are in desperate need of money to provide services to AIDS sufferers and their loved ones. These mainly volunteer groups are often the only refuge people with AIDS can turn to for emotional and practical support, and yet the province has failed to under- stand their vital role. The recent decision by the B.C. gov- ernment to channel most of its AIDS funding into creating a research and treatment ‘“‘centre for excellence’? — a po- litical buzzword, not a medical term — is a good example of that failure to appreciate the contribution of AIDS support groups. Over the years the resources of these community support groups have been spread thin. AIDS Vancouver, for exam- ple, is struggling to serve 500 people with the same funds it used to serve 50 when it opened. This Is Not A One Night Stand deserves applause. The provincial government needs to rethink its approach to dealing with the AIDS disease. Sex education is the problem Dear Editor: Three cheers for the West Van- couver School Board in voting three to two against inscailing condoms in public school washrooms. | only wish it could have been five cheers, In a sense, isn't it an absurdity to place this family responsibility on the public school system? Parents who have this concern, and feel that condoms are the an- swec for their children can, if they children on a family by family basis, if this represents part of their value system. Or parents can take the advice of Dr. Robert C. Noble, Professor of Medicine, University of Ken- tucky College of Medicine and an infectious disease specialist. when he says: ‘*Passing out condoms to teenagers is like issuing them squirt guns for a four-alarm blaze. Condoms just don't hack it. We should stop kidding ourselves.” Sex’? Newsweek April 1, 1991.) The sex education program taught in our public school system is, in my view, the problem, not the cure. We need to turn away from the present sexual indoctrination of our students, our children, and ci- ther delete it from our educational programs or radically change it to incorporate a strong abstinence message. Geoffrey Stitt wish, make provision for their (Excerpt from ‘There !s No Safe West Vancouver Publisher . Peter Speck Managing Editor Associate Editor : Advertising Director Linda Stewart Newsroom Comptrolter Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualtied under Schedule 11°. Paragraph Wl of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lta and distnbuted to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mail Registiation Number 3885 year. Mailing rates avatlabie on request Submissions are weicome but we cannot accept : responsibility for unsolicnead matenal inciuang V7M 2H4 manuscnpls and pictures which should be accompaned by a stamped. adare'ssed envelope Disolay Advertising Timathy Renshaw Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscristions 986-1337 Noel Wnght Classified Advertising 986-6222 fax Pot VO OF WONT AnD WEST WANeCONIYE SUnbav Tw rowesGen = Phony Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. Entire contents < 1991 North Shore Free Press Lid. Ali rights reserved 980-0511 = Distripution 986-1337 985-3227 985-2131 = Admirastration = 985-2131 MEMBER SDA DIVISION $1,582 (average curculation, Wednesday. Friday & Sunaay) Doctor with a very different waiting room TIL ERE ARE doctors and dectors. And then there’s Dr. Gopa Kothari — pediatrician and community medicine specialist, world renowned for her blindness prevention work among Bombay slum children. f caught up with her last week at the home of West Van film producer Gary Payne, who has filmed her on the job in India. She’s an impressive lady. In 2 country with an infant mortality rate of 9L per 1,000 (Canada’s is 7.2) and some 1.5 million children blind by 16 — mostly due to lack of Vitamin A — her routine is a little different from that of a B.C. family physi- cian. If you think OUR health system has problems, hold your nose and visit Dr. Gopa’s ‘‘waiting room’’ — a one-square-mile slum housing the 600,000 poorest of Bombay’s 10 million people. A density of 15 times that of Vancouver’s West End. Mostly single-storey shacks with no sanitation, Water from com- munal wells. Open sewers along the narrow alleys. Each tiny hovel is home to an average of seven children and their parents, often with addi- tional family members. Many are destitute, landless peasants from rural areas, who flood into Bom- bay by the thousands each week. Picking her way daily amid the stench and squalor of this ghetto, Dr. Gopa directs her clinical team working iu whatever shack is set aside for it. They inoculate children, give them the vital Vitamin A supplement and — even more important in the long term — provide the mothers and women with instruction in nutri- tion and hygiene. One reason for her visit to Canada is that she’s Bombay pro- ject director for Operation Eyesight Universal based in Calgary. It funds hospitals for treating cataract in various parts of India — and they have a strong local link. The OEU network has devel- oped from a pioneer eye hospital founded 52 years ago in Sompeta by West Van's late Dr. Ben - Gullison and wife Evlyn, who made it their life work. Today, every $25 donated to the OEU fund restores the sight of an In- dian cataract patient. Eyesight, however, is by no means Dr. Gopa's sole concern. She runs programs for hard-of- hearing youngsters and child polio victims — plus such services for slum communities as maternal and family health, schoot health and school meals. She trains volunteers, gives talks on radio and TV and writes many articles for Indian and world journals. Her list of international Wright * Noel HITHER AND YON honors — including adviser to the World Health Organization and guest lecturer at U.K. universities — would alone fill most of a col- umn. But the job that ultimately counts is done in that teeming, in- sanitary, mile-square ‘‘waiting room’’ -- where Dr. Gopa and her team bring health and hope daily to hundreds in desperate need of both. POSTSCRIPTS: Cap College is stil! in shock over a mature Squamish Band student admired and greatly liked by her fellow Merchandising Management Pro- gram students. After her final ex- ams she went home with a head- ache so severe that she was hospi- talized. Last Wednesday, just two days later, Carole Newman, 54, died of a brain tumor. ‘‘It’s trag- ic,” says instructor Hilary Clark. “She was so dedicated aud we were so proud of her — she was our first native graduate”’ ... North Van District will honor 100 of its distinguished citizens, past and present, this summer as part of its Centennial celebraticns. Nomination forms — deadiine May 15 — from District Hall, 355 West Queens ... And West Van seniors ‘‘Swing Into Spring’’ 8 p.m. to midn‘ght Saturday, May 4, with the big band dance music cf the ‘Miller Aires’ at the Seniors Centre — check 926-4375 for any remaining tickets. WRIGHT OR WRONG: Ask enough people and someone will always advise you to do what you were going to do anyway. s DR. GOPA...with West Van hosts Gary and Rosemary Payne. wn ’