«LL SEE YOUR
FOUR ACES

Doctoring the system

HE MEDICAL MASH unit
media event that hit the forth

Shore Tuesday gave local coc‘ors
a chance to portray harassed :aedics in
the trenches and to vent professional
spleens over their own stalled fee
_negotiations with the provincial gevern-
“ment.

And while the nearby study session
was long on rhetoric, it was short on
solution.

The basic message delivered was that
doctors are underpaid and overworked.

But it is more than doctors who are
overworked. The B.C. medical system

of B.C.’s health budget goes to pay doc-

tors’ fees.

According to health ministry figures,
the average annual payment to a doctor
through the Medical Services Plan (MSP)

is $143,000.

Doctors want an initial fee increase of
6.1 per cent; the government has offered
an overall 3.5 per cent MSP budget in-

crease.

The first option would add approxi-
mately $220 million to the MSP bill over
three years; the second would add $70

million over two years.

Taxpayers will be footing the bill,

itself is suffering from financial stress
and strain as it attempts to deal with
skyrocketing medical costs and a rapidly
aging population.

B.C.’s total health budget in 1989-90,
for example, was $4.3 billion, approxi-
mately one third of the province’s entire
budget. And approximately one quarter

regardless of the eventual settlement.
With revenues from MSP premiums ac-
counting for only 15 per cent of B.C.’s
total health bill, it is time to institute a
nominal user-pay fee to communicate the
message to those who would abuse the
system that B.C.’s health care is far from
ree.

Feel

Dear Editor:

Noel Wright should waste no
time feeling sympathy for Mary
Collins and Kim Campbell (Loyal
Kim and Mary owed better breaks,
April 6).

These elected women, and others
like them, will never make a dif-
ference in changing social struc-

Publisher
Managing Editor Timothy Rensha
Associate Editor

no sympathy

Peter Speck

Noe! Wright
Advertising Director . Linda Stewart

tures that govern the rights of
women.

Both ministers know that if they
want to further their political am-
bition, they must play the game
according to the rules laid down in
a patriarchal political system.

Elected women who have a vi-
sion of a compassionate society

TIE VOKCE OF NORTH AND WET VANCOUVER

Ww

SUNDAY » WEONESOAY - Fainay

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for

governed by humanitarian values
are not usually in positions of
power; they sit on the opposition.
If Collins and Campbell's
reward is ‘‘hanging them out to
twist in the wind,’’ hopefully the
women of Canada will finish them
off at the ballot box.
Maureen Simmonds, North Van

980-0511
986-6222
985-2131
986-1337
986-1337

Trustees must rein
in galloping Doug!

DOUGLAS PLAYER, West Van Superintendent of Schools
who also styles himself ‘‘Chief Executive Officer,” is a man
in a hurry. More so than most corporate CEOs answerable

to shareholders dare to be.

As a result, West Van taxpayers
and parents have only two more
days left to persuade the board of
directors — a.k.a. West Yan
School Board — to apply the
brakes to Mr. Player’s plan for a
massive restructuring of their
school systein.

The five-year plan comes up for
final decision by the board this
Monday, May 14 — only seven
weeks after it was first unveiled
and a mere three weeks after the
single evening allowed for public
input on its sweeping and so:ne-
times startling proposals.

“Facilities for the Future,’’ as
it’s called, addresses the problems
of a higher birth rate, an increas-
ing school population and school
buildings that have now become
inadequate.

Among other things, additional
multi-million dollar school facili-
ties will be built, Hillside and
Pauline Johnson torn down (the
latter to be replaced by a new
“p_J.’’), Eagle Harbour ‘‘reclaim-
ed’’ by evicting the community
centre and Cedardale converted to
admin offices.

To help pay the bills the School
District will get into the real estate
business by selling the Hillside and
Hollyburn sites, plus 13 acres it
owns on Caulfeild Plateau to de-
velopers.

Sooner or later all this will lead
to numerous programs being
relocated — with affected stu-
dents, Montessori and French im-
raersion classes, and day-care tod-
dlers being moved around the
District like pawns on a chess
board.

One of the most controversial
items in the Player package is the
sale of public land for housing. It
makes short-term sense for financ-
ing the whole plan, of course. But
should equivalent land ever be
needed for future school use, the
cost would be punitive. One
wonders how fully the alternative
option of leasing was explored.

Also highly debatable is the
plan’s concentration of facilities
east of 22nd Street, when many see
a growing need for a third second-
ary school in the western end of
the district —- on those 13
Caulfeild Plateau acres, for exam-

ple.

No doubt various other fears
aired by the protesting interest
groups which thronged the April
23 public meeting would fade as
the plan unfolded. But that’s not
the immediate concern.

For the moment simply far too
much has been thrown at West
Van taxpayers and parents all at
once — with far too tight a
deadline. They need much more
time to digest and discuss a plan of
this magnitude and cost. With a
$26 million budget and $25 million
in assets West Van schools are a
major community investment
which they’re not prepared to treat
lightly.

The board’s duty to ‘‘share-
holders’? on Monday is to rein in
galloping Doug and defer any final
decision until a further public
meeting has been held.

anak

WRAP-UP: Nominated for a Ca-
nadian promotional film ‘‘Oscar’’
at next month’s Yorkton Short
Film & Video Festival is ‘The Gift
of Sight’? — shot by North Shore
moviemaker Gary Payne in India
last fali for Calgary-based Opera-
tion Eyesight Universal. The an-
nual Yorkton Festival sponsors the
only nationwide competition for
promotional films ... The in-
famous Gouge and Screw Tax tops
the agenda next Monday, May 14,
at the a.g.m. of the Reform Par-
ty’s North Van constituency, with
Chartered Accountant David
Anderson, who chairs the RP task
force on federal spending and tax-
ation, as keynote speaker —
everyone welcome at 7 p.m. in the
North Shore Winter Club ... And
congrats to longtime North Van
residents Wilfred and Anabel Col-
lier who today, May 1! — 50 years
after their marriage in Kamsock,
Sask. — become the latest
members of the ‘*Golden Club.”’

eae

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Give
your decision — never your
reasons. Your decision may be
right, your reasons probably
wrong.

985-3227
MEMBER

Photo submitted
WELCOME VISITOR to Chesterfield House... B.C. Tel administration
manager Bob Chambers (centre) presents $500 donation to Dick Burns,
incoming board president of the North Van parent/child counselling fa-
cility, and social worker Bonnie Robertson.

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