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Dear Editor:

Health Minister Jim
Nielsen seems anxious to
rationalize his government's
butchery of our hospitals.
His most recent comments
on average length of stay and
productivity support the
argument that the Ministry
of Health is being run by the
Ministry of Finance or the
Treasury Board.

Everyone that I know goes
into hospital when their
doctor tells them to go and
leaves hospital when their
doctor discharges them.
Studies do exist that show a
relation between how
medical practices are
organized and admission
rates or lengths of stay.
While these studies suggest
factors that may affect

hospital utilization, none of
them suggest that patients
elect to remain in hospital.
Nielsen’s comments on
productivity are’ actually
dangerous. It is hazardous to
our health when decision
makers use a simple ratio of
staff per patient day as a
measure of productivity.
Productivity should have
something to do with out-

Canada saves N.Y. $330 m.

Dear Editor:

When Ottawa strays into
the rapid transit business we
know that something is up.
Big orders for Eastern
manufacturers, no doubt.
But subsidized sales to
foreign buyers? That's in-
credible!

Take the recent $1 billion
contract for subway cars
going to the New York
Transit Authority.

Bombardier in Montreal
got this U.S. business
because our give-away
package looked better than
the give-away packages
offered by the French, the
West Germans and the
Japanese.

Federal Ministers Pepin
and Gray tell us that we are
going to lend our New York
friends upwards of $800
million. They are going to
pay us back over many years
at an interest of 9.7 per cent.
“Thanks,” New York's
Transit Chairman Richard
Ravitch is reported to have
said. “This will save our
taxpayers and our transit
riders $330 million (U.S.).
More than %400 million
(Canadian) if we'd had to
borrow all this money in the
U.S.A.”

And what do we Canadian
taxpayers get in return? A

thousand jobs in the
Montreal area building
Sick of Girl
Dear Editor:

My family and I are sick
and tired of your “Sunshine
Girl”. We object to these
photographs of young
women as we feel they are
sexually cxploitive, and
offensive to women. We
would welcome photos and
stories about people on the
North Shore who have
something more to offer
than their sex appeal.

You may deliver to every
door on the North Shore. but
we will not support) your
paper financially until the
“Sunshine Girl” is removed

The Brewers
West Vancouver

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Jutte Elford
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984-0251

Japanese designed subway
cars. Domestic content:
about 60 per cent. Fewer
Canadian jobs per taxpayer’s
dollar than in building
homes or hospitals and the
like.

And where was the
Trudeau administration
when our new Rapid Transit
system was being launched,
last year, in Vancouver?
Where was all this low cost,
federal money then? A $400

million subsidy would have
given us all of our ALRT
cars and electrics and
electronics for nothing. And
the Canadian content is 100
per cent!

Frankly, I can't fathom
the Ottawa mind. It is
focused on Quebec and
foreign “freebees” and little
else.

Hon. Jack Davis, MLA
Chairman, B.C. Transit
Committee

Transportation

hazards go with
expanded plant

Dear Editor:

Let us temporarily
disregard the factor of plant
safety at the plants east of
the Seymour which
manufacture hazardous
chemicals. Everyone seems
to agree that transportation
is a major source of ac-
cidents, and control of all
the factors in transportation
has not been achieved by
any stretch of imagination or
promise.

Obviously, any expansion
of facilities means increase
in traffic, in volume of
containers or in the number
of carriers: therefore, in-
crease in potential danger.
We live cast of the Seymour.
The only exit route is the

road directly north of Erco
and Canadian Oxy. At
Mississauga, the population
could be dispersed north,
south, east and west. Are we
to be all airlifted out? Or do
emergency plans call for
major airlifting in of food
and protection for some
20,000 of us, huddled atop
Mount Seymour?

It’s up to council to re-
affirm its acceptance of the
recommendations of the
Community Hazards Task
Force. No increase in
storage or manufacturing, in
order to guard against in-
crease in transportation.

Mrs. J.R. Tait
North Vancouver

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come — do you come out of
the hospital better than
when you went in. Anyone
who reads the early history
of hospitals knows that in the
late nineteenth century a
patient was more likely to
die of an infection con-
tracted in hospital than to
die of the disease that caused
admission to hospital. In
modern hospitals a_ great

Dogs more

harmful
than

cougars

Dear Editor:

A recent article by Chns
Lloyd in your newspaper
describes how local Fish and
Wildlife Conservation
Officer, Doug Adolf, had
shot and killed two cougars
near the entrance to Mount
Seymour Park after they had
killed and eaten a dog.

Mr. Lloyd quoted Mr.
Adolf as saying, “We don’t
fool around when we get a
cougar...”

I think the record will
show that over the last
twenty years or so, there
have been two or possibly
three instances of old and
hungry cougars attacking
children in the wintertime. If
my memory serves me
correctly, two of these in-
stances occurred on Nor-
thern Vancouver Island.

The record, I would
suggest, clearly shows that as
a basic proposition this
beautiful but vanishing
animal is harmless to man
and certainly far more
harmless than various
varieties of dogs which
people are allowed to
harbour and let run free.

For a hunter to be allowed

to shoot this endangered
species is bad cnough — for
a conservation officer to do
this as, frankly. un-
believable

Fred Herbert

Vancouver

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deal of effort goes into basic
housekeeping so as_ to
control infection. The
person that cleans the floors
and does the laundry is an
essential part of the health

KENNEDY
McDONALD

Patients don’t CHOOSE to remain in hospital

team. Reducing such staff
may reduce the ratio of staff
to patient days but it may
also shorten a few lives.
David D. Schreck

Vancouver

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