20 - Sunday, March 28, 1993 - North Shore News lealth care sees changes YOU CAN see it coming a mile away. Dollars to doughnuts it’s in the works, and | have to admit | think it’s overdue. And of course it just can’t be thrown at us, there has to be a lot of ground tilled, grad- ed, spaded and subject to har- rowing before we have a workable design for universal health care. The one we have, you see, we're failing. It’s not failing us, we're failing it because we're not taking responsibility for our share. _ We keep on smoking, in the face of all cautionary evidence; we lie in the sun to tan our hides in order to declare our. privileged lifestyle; we eat globs of chocolate mousse on top of baskets of hot deep- fried shrimp which were full of cholesterol before they ever took the plunge into the tub of hot saturated oil. We tounge. indoors hyp- notized by games played on TV by strenuous strangers who are lean and mean and rich too. We drink. ’ We’re heading for the scrt of health service we deserve, ‘and how much we pay for it will be determined by how much. we've contributed by our own. lifestyles and by to what degree ‘we take charge of ourselves. : I'm not talking user fees, Pm talking points. Just as your driving habits are monitored, so will your health habits be. scrutinized and your personal health charge calculated. It will be much fairer, and in my view much more effective. "| don’t think in the begin- ning that it will be that tough for you and me. We’ll be pe- nalized, sure, if we're in rotten shape and doing nothing to correct it. But it’s unlikely there will be any attempt to revolutionize our lifestyles — we’re not going to last long enough for effective remedial work to be wasted on us. It came to. me during the Seniors’. Wellness Conference that took place in downtown Vancouver’ March 17, 18 and 19. Ms. Cull was there, the se- cond time inside of three ig pyaad YEARS months that I’d heard her make a speech about the parlous state of our medical plan and what her government was bent on doing to correct it. Any steps that are planned have to start with the money thing, and it has, somehow, to target the abusers. So the logical solution, as I see it, is for each of us to carry a ficence that will be proffered when we seek medi- cal help. At first blush it sounds om- inously like futureworks, doesn’t it, and regimentation and police-state action. But we don’t feel that way about other licences we carry to hunt, to borrow books, to drive our vehicles, to write cheques at the supermarket. It will deter, one is sure, visits to the doctor that derive from isolation rather than ac- tual perceivable illness, or visits for advice that could have been taken care of by one’s pharmacist. Once we accept that solu- tion, and take responsibility for our own health care, we should be able to manage our very . desirable universal care system. Especially when there is also moving inio place realization rediscovery of the pleasure and profit to be had from knowing your neighbors and helping each other as in the olden days. This Wellness Conference was really just a giant-sized workshop for seniors from all over the province who are al- ready busy being neighbors in their communities, The most of them were sim- ply volunteering time to help where needed; the others were professionals who see a need for working with the frail cl- derly certainly, but also with the active, lively kind, to find out how to keep us all that way. They came from Penticton and South Vancouver and Deep Cove and Kelowna and Kaslo and Duncan and Vernon and Clearwater, and they all contributed and all eagerly traded ways they’d developed . for making wellness a daily goal. Incidentally, the new tag for seniors is ‘‘more experienced people.” Ain't it the truth. A panel of bureaucrats from the Ministry of Health and af- filiated councils brought up an interesting point. The fact is, no one amongst us or them has a vroper vision of aging in the future because it’s only been a relevant concern for the fast 20 to 25 years. That’s how brief a time the average person has been living as long as we’ve begun to do! The panel also pointed out the changes in store, as seniors tend more and more to each Other’s company rather than that of their children and grandchildren, simply because of the increased incidence of divorce. And of how the education level of the elderly is advan- cing, and that those seniors who live in houses are more and more of them free of mortgages. Something else: we’re champion supporters of the arts, and culture generally, and are the biggest contributors to of the benefits of charity. neighborliness. 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