© — Wednesday, July 8, 1992 - North Shore News YM NOT SURE WHETHER THE DOCTOR 18 ON STRIKE, OR THIS IS THE USUAL. WAITING PERIOD... Principles and property there is property. Most people would agree it’s preferable for the mentaliy and physically diszbled to live within. the community rather than in large institutions. But locate that. group home in their neighborhood and they start talking property values in- stead of human values. : T HERE ARE principles — and then Often, there is a lack of communication between neighbors and care-giving agencies as to what the facility will entail. Residents fear that people with severe mental or other disabilities will have an adverse im- pact on their neighborhood. Rumors fo- BCS. . A case in point is the proposal to build a group home on Phyllis Road in Lynn Valley. The local residents are arguing against its construction, pointing out that there are alrendy 14 group homes in the Lyun Valiey ares alone. . On that principle, they do have a point. Of some 26 group homes in North Van- couver District, 14 of them are lecated in Lynn Valley. The next areas with the most homes are Capilano and Blueridge with three each. ; Unfortunsiely, sites for group homes are not chosen fy the province. The best the district can do to redress the lack of balance is to merely point it out to the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Services and hope they notice. : As for attitudes toward group home res- idents, it does not follow that living near a group home immediately reduces one’s property value and one’s quality of life, as one resident has argued. . it may have no effect whatsoever, or it mbky be a positive experience to live near people with a different perspective than our own. : The chances are the same for any new neighbor moving in — they may or may not jive with our preconceived notion of . what ‘normal’? is. LETTER OF THE DAY GVRD should be conserving water, too Dear Editor: on Boundary Road. The water While I firmly believe in con- servation of all our resources, not only during times of scarcity, 1 do - question the GVRD’s motives re- garding their massive campaign for water conservation. Is the problem the lack of water or rather an antiquated water delivery system? : Why did the GVRD choose this year (the driest of all winters) to lower the Capilano reservoir in order to do repairs to the dam? Was it, really to make the dam earthquake-proof or was it to make modifications for the up- coming hydro generation system? In Seymour Demonstration Forest | have noticed a major water leak in the mid-valley view point area, The water, smelling strongly of chlorine, is percolating in several spots through the gravel at a rate of about 300 gallons per minute. This Jeak has been there for over a year. I also recently saw a water leak was flowing onto the street and into the storm sewer. I would estimate the flow at 200 gallons per minute. Five hundred gallons per minute translates into 30,000 gallons per hour or % million gallons per day. Where are the GVRD's efforts at water conservation? Don McDermid North Vancouver Publisher Peter Speck Managing Editor... . Timothy Renshaw Associate Editor Noel Wright Advertising Director . . Linda Stewart Comptroller Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1959 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 141, Paragraph Jt! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed 10 every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Maiting rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited materiat including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Newsroom V7M 2H4 Display Advertising Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising Distribution 986-1337 Subscriptions 986-1337 986-6222 Fax 985-3227 985-2131 Administration 965-2131 980-0511 & Printed on 10% recycled sewsprint North Shore managed north shore: SUNDAY « WEDNCEOAY + FmDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday. Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Doc’s revolt all emotion - too few facts STRIKING B.C. doctors are either bluffing shamelessly or else are urgently in need of someone who can explain the FACTS of their case to an increasingly skeptical public. The B.C. Medical Association to date has been long on emotion but remarkably short on specifics. Its million-dollar ad campaign accuses Mike Harcourt’s govern- ment of breaking promises, refus- ing to negotiate and seeking to wreck medicare. But for a profes- _Sion dedicated to scientific objec- tivity, the BCMA seems curiously reluctant so far to justify any of the charges with detailed facts and figures. As a result, the docs are clearly losing the first battle in the com- munication war to tough-minded Health Minister Elizabeth Cull. She's shown no fear of entering the lions’ den to talk with them. And she insists that this year’s $1.27 billion cap on total billings by doctors — aimed at curbing health care costs that threaten to go into orbit — is the ONLY non-negotiable item on the tabie. Your scribe (definitely not an NDP-hugger) may have dozed off briefly, but he can recall no prom- ise to the contrary by the party. Cull says the $1.27 billion — an increase of 4.7% ($57 million) over fast year and twice the infla- tion rate —- means doc can see at least as many patients and do at least as much for them as in 1991. The extra $57 miilion works out at an average of about $8,000 extra for each of B.C.'s some 6,500 medicine men. : Not so, retorts BCMA president Dr. Steve Hardwicke, We need $60 million more. Otherwise we'll be working without pay — which is why we've started to close our offices for 20 days in the current year. Since even without that addi- tional $60 million each medic is due co get some $8,000 extra any- how, the BCMA’s “working without pay’’ math is a little dif- ficult to follow without more detailed examples. North Van’s Dr. David Brooks tells us individual 1991 biilings by ALL physicians (including specialists) averaged $165,000 — some 50% for overhead, giving doc an average personal income of $82,500. And Brooks claims overhead is increasing by 6%, not Cull’s 4.7%. Fair comment —.though even an average $5,400 rise in overhead out of a 1992 extra of $8,000 should still leave doc $3,400 better off. But in one sense these basic calculator exercises are irrelevant. Ai MIKE HARCOURT... what were the doctors ‘promised’? Noe! Wright _ HITHER AND YON The real point is that Cull has made her case to the taxpayers in clear, understandable terms. The BCMA has not yet done likewise. Until it does, the suffering public can hardly be blamed if it uses the presently available facts to form its own conclusions about who's being rotten to whom. Liz to the BCMA? Or the strik- ing docs to all the rest of us? TAILPIECES: New 1992-93 president of the Ladies Auxiliary to West Van Legion Branch 60 is Midge Malcolm, elected at the ze- cent @.g.m. along with veepee Doris McMaais, secretary Lor- caine Jobrstone and treasurer Peggy Waod ... West Van's popu- lar Concerts by the Sea return | throughout July and August, * Wednesdays and Sundays at 7 p.m. in Ambleside Park and Sun- * days at 1:30 p.m. in Horseshoe Bay — call 925-3605 for further info ... Need office experience to enhance your job skills? Get it at the North Shore Support Society, 983-2141, which needs volunteers for office heip ... And well worth a peek are the paintings of Alan Reynolds, on exhibit all this . month at West Van Library. WRIGHT OR WRONG: Alithori- ty makes some folks grow —~' -: others iust sweil. ey ELIZABETH CULL... winning the words war by default.