oc-in-a-box’ torefront medical clinics now springing up in Vancouver are 2 rationalization of normal general practitioner services that could change our whole concept of primary health care — and even possibly cut its cost to the taxpayer a little. The first local ‘‘doc-in-a-box"’ centre has just been opened in East Vancouver by Care Point, a Canadian chain which plans several others for the Lower Mainland. The centre, which had close to 25 patients a day during its first week, offers seven-day service from 7a.m. to 11 p.m. with no appointment. Compared to the frequent delays in obtaining an appointment with the average GP during his much more restricted office hours (and usually not at atl on the weekend), Care Point’s opening hours are an ob- vious boon to people suffering a minor ailment or in- jury Hitherto, their only alternative has been the hospital emergency department with its $10 user fee. Care Point charges no fee. its doctors bill the government on the patient’s medical plan number in the normal way and hand over 40 per cent of their fee to the cenire. What happens, in effect, is that the walk-in clinic’s 40 per cent roughly equates to the overhead and recep- tionist’s salary a GP has to pay if running his own of- fice. And by pooling the services of a number of doc- tors the clinic is able to operate the extended hours that cater to the convenience of its patients. Lacking, of course, is the personal patient-doctor relationship. But that happens anyhow with patients forced to use hospital emergency d#partments. Pro- vided quality is maintained, the ‘‘doc-in-a-box’’ ex- periment seems well worth watching. hy does THE VOICE OF NOHTH AND WEST VANCOUVER Sie {ot SUNTIAW + WEUNESOAY 1 Fattpayr 1139 Lonsdale Ave. North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 57,656 rivetaqe Wednesday brihie & Sunday) Sa Display Advertising 980-0511 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Distribution 986-1337 Subscriptions 986-1337 North Shore New ews fergent ath oe Behag any Sy THE FOLLOWING 1S A PAID POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT. Publisher: Editor-in-Chiet Managing Editor Advertising Director Peter Speck Noel Wright Barrett Fisher Linda Stewart WP Pragrabe Ht te Ke eres aie en Entre contents “ 1986 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All nights reserved ontreal ‘vibrate’? RENEWED PRIDE in being Canadian — that about sums least offered a few hints about up your faithful scribe’s sentiments on revisiting Montreal last week after an absence of 13 years. Any nation that can boast of two cities nearly 3,000 miles apart and so diversely unique as Mon- treal and Vancouver has to have done at Jeast a few things right down the years, Montreal was the chosen venue for the 1986 annual convention of editors representing more than 1,000 community newspapers across Canada and the U.S. hosted by Suburban Newspapers of America, one of the several in- dustry associations that regularly award prizes to the North Shore News. It all took place in the Bonaven- ture Hilton which, in itself, is rather typical of Montreal's uniqueness. It’s billed as the world’s only ‘‘garden' penthouse’ hotel. The six-acre Place Bonaventure is reputedly Canada’s largest building by ground area. The street Jevels house a shopping inall bigger than Pacific Centre, with the next 16 floors devoted to wholesale showmart and business cffices, The 400-room hotel, occupying only the top two storeys, is built around spacious gardens featuring streams, waterfalls, duck ponds, what makes the place tick. Links with English Canada still Noel Wright goldfish pools and a magnificent outdoor swimming pool — all this a serene 200 feet above the noise and auto fumes of the busy Rue University. Someone had a great idea. Here, the News collected two more SNA honors. Aside from that they kept our noses to the grindstone from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily in seminars by top gurus of the newspaper industry, aimed at teaching us how to smarten up our act still further. The routine didn’t leave too much time for in-depth research into Montreal’s communal psyche. But exploring the downtown core during our precious spare hours at LETTER OF THE DAY hat Dear Editor: in regards to Mr. Doug Collins’ column, | wish to express the high estzxin in which I hold your news- proer. Considering the outright left wing indoctrination that our fell citizens must swallow from ev: wional television, radio and wast newspaper organizations, vous even-handed counterpoint is ret clcome,. os . Having lived and travelled in many countries on both sides of the equator, I can claim a some- what better understanding of vary- ing circumstances and customs in other nations. Mr. Collins’ words do bring sanity and a new perspec- tive to events and affairs that are often misrepresented. For instance, does the fact that we desperately. need to. sell our... , * © focus ® abound in the commercial world. Eaton’s, The Bay, Marks & Spencer, United Cigar Stores and Budget Rent-A-Car are among dozens of names offering a famil- iar greeting to the anglo visitor. Aside from the signage, the modern shopping malls are visual clones of their counterparts from Edmonton ‘to Dallas. Except for spelling ‘trum’? with an ‘“h’’ the Societe des Alcools du Quebec could be your friendly neighborhood liquor store anywhere from Victoria to Prince George. And the current show at the Stage 1 dinner theatre is ‘‘Ain’t Misbehaving’. The unique ‘‘feel’’ of Montreal wheat make Russia more tradeworthy than South Africa, when Russian soldiers kill, destroy and maim innocent lives, especially children, in Afghanistan on a grand scale. Despite the severe abuses of apartheid, blacks from neighboring countries crash through borders into South Africa. Ever heard of people crashing into the-Soviet Union. to improve their. oo ae ee ee ae hits you, however, as soon as your airport taxi driver heads for downtown in a weaving, tailgating 90 k/h race with his competitors. Incidentally, when you enter the vehicle at Dorval, an airport func- tionary hands you a card showing the taxi’s number for claim pur- poses, assuming you survive. | thought that very civilized. Impressive architecture, old and new, plus the endless variety of elegant stores, fascinating bouti- ques, outstanding restaurants and exciting nightspots — these, of course, are the most frequently cited ingredients of the city’s fam- ed ‘“vibrance’’. But nowadays Toronto and Vancouver aren’t do- ing too badly, either, in those departments. The real, downtown vibrance comes from Montrealers themselves. Partly, I suspect, due to so many of them being com- muters liberated from their cars by an excellent metro subway and bus system. In their thousands they throng everywhere on foot, bustl- ing along at the brisk pace of peo- ple with a purpose — people who know where they're going and the quickest way to get there. It’s avalanches of busy pedestri- ans like these — not the crawling automobiles that give New York, London, Paris and other great world cities their charac- teristic flavor. With the help of jakes Blacks gatecras lor? . Similarly on the home front, your topics do make us wonder at the general corruption of our gov- ernments and of our political par- ties. Who does one vote for regardless of ideological leaning? Thank you for a job well done, keep it up, P. Assoignon West Vancouve SkyTrain Vancouver is finally star- ting to move in that direction. Montreal has already arrived. The other big factor is language. Whether anglo ears understand it or not, spoken French is a lively and animated sound. To walk block after busy block or wander for an hour through a crowded shopping mall without hearing a single word of English — and to realize this is still all part of one’s homeland — I find an immensely stimulating experience. Not that you’re likely any longer to get lost while enjoying it. Premier Bourassa is turning a blind eye te the tougher provisions of Language Bill 10!. Signs in French and English for almost everything are now pretty univer- sal. In fact, the one thing IT have against present-day Montrealers is that they’re foo darned helpful. They wouldn’t let me speak my quite reasonable French for more than 30 seconds. Once they tumbl- ed to the fact that 1 wasn’t one of them, they switched tc humiliatingly fluent English. C'est le grand putdown. Didn't they ever hear about two-way bilingualism ? If you haven’t been there lately, Montreal will give you a real lift. You may even return home glad to belong to a country that insists on French on the cornflake boxes sold in B.C. frica? P.S. My comments above do not support South Africa’s apartheid. Having lived there for five years, I left because of my fundamental re- jection of a system that denies equality of opportunity regardless of race. By the same token, one must realize that instituting one person one vote Canadian style overnight is inviting civil war and .- destruction of a beautiful country.