6 — Friday, March 6, 1998 — North Shore News north shore news VIEWPOINT Sick system we go again. Patients and healthcare workers are being eld hostage by doctors in a fight over money. Doctors, who earn on average $145,000 after expenses, are closing their offices March 6, 18 and 31, Apparently the budget overrun on the Medical Services Plan is as much as $61 million. The British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA) argues that the overrun results from the province’s inadequate funding. The demands of a growing and aging population weren’t accounted for, doctors say. : They’re caliing for a $300 million- plus increase in Medical Services Plan : funding over the next two years. ‘Most immediately the medical office assistants employed by doctors may be Doctors say the reduced service will not affect emergency services. Time will tell the tale on this front. Hospital emergency wards through- out the Lower Mainland are already stretched to the limits in terms of their ability to provide speedy treatment. The already stressed emergency ward at Lions Gate Hospital will likely take some of the extra load generated by patients who don’t have the option of visiting their family doctors’ offices on three Fridays this month. The BCMA missicn statement pledges that doctors will work to “achieve appropriate compensation for professional services” and “to maintain the highest professional standards among physicians.” If patients matter at all, this job action makes a mockery of the notion NOTICE To THE PuBlic ALL DOCTOR SERVICES HANE WITHDRAWN EXCEPT FoR! Lie OR DEATH EMERGENCIES — out some pay while doctors seek more. mailbox Doctors back LGH emergency staff Dear Editor: - - _ The physicians of Lions Gate Hospital wish to express full confidence in the ability of Dr. Don Warner to treat seriously il] patients in the emergency department of Lions Gate hospital. Dr. Warner is a senior emergency depart- ment physician who has the respect of his colleagues in the ‘epartinent of emergency medicine and in the rest of the ; hospital. : “1. The issue of the diversion of ambulances from other hospitals in the Lower Mainland is one that we have raised -for the last two months with the administration. We object .to the practice of the ambulance crews deciding for them- selves where patients should be transported within the Lower Mainland, without prior consultation with the emergency room physicians. We hope that administration _WiIL raise this issue directly with emergency health services. * Dr. Warner was already dealing with several seriously ill, unstable patients when this patient was transferred. He ensured that the patient was stable before deciding that the patient could be treated closer to home. We would invite officials from the Ministry of Health to spend a shift with the emergency physicians in our emergency department ’ before pronouncing on what Dr. Warner should or should not have done in the circumstances. Peter Richards M.B. Ch.B., B.Sc. (Hons) President of the Medical Staff Lions Gate Hospital _- Mailbox policy LETTERS to the editor must be legible (preferably type- . written) and include your name, full address and telephone number. Due to space constrainis the North Shore News cannot publish all letters. “e iy R te north shore 2 North ‘shore Hews, tounded # 1969 as an indepe-dent suburban newspaper and quakhed under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the ‘Exese Tax Act, is publeshed each Wednesday, Feiday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press, Lid. and dkstributed to every door on the North ‘Shote. Canada Post Canadian Pubsicatrons Mart Sales Product Agreement No 0087238. Maikng sztes avedable on sequest. Distribution Manager SQ-1337 (124) . . 61.582 (average cnculation, Yeonesday. Fnday & Sunday) The Morth Shore News is published by North Shore Free Pr Creative Services Manager of high professional standards. BY now, you might have noticed my interest in — and hostility toward — the McCleary Centre questionnaire. It will be given to West Vancouver students aged 12 (or younger) and up — unless the schoo] board can be persuaded to change its foolish decision last month. That could depend on whether parents, in suffi- cient numbers, pretest. I’ve read the question- naire and I've interviewed McCleary’s executive direc- tor, Dr. Roger Tonkin. ['ve learned that Dr. Tonkin rejects “conservative” approaches to youth drug/drink/sex problems. Pve learned that he thinks thar “strong, hard ... nega- tive messages” don’t work. So what does work, in his opinion? I found his views vague and unsatisfactory. But as far as I could see, they were implicitly permissive —~ handing over the definition of youthful norms to the most troubled, screwed-up teenagers, the trendy media, and poke-and-sniff academics, and leaving parents silently, anxiously, impo- tently on the sidelines, hoping that good examples will guide their offspring. Your kids and my kids aren’ just raw material for sociological studies and statisti- eal bar graphs. Their dignity and privacy shouldn't be invaded. Trustees Jean Ferguson, Erica Bell- Lowther and Ken Haycock voted in favor of putting the questionnaire to West Vancouver students. (Clive Bird and David Stevenson, to their credit, were opposed.) PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) ee Human Resources 965-2131 (17) erry Pet out t Fratography Manager Classnied Manager S3S-2131 (160) 908-8222 (202) Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. ess Ltd., Publisher Peior Speck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver, B.C., V7M 204 _ Ns SOMEWHERE IN B.C... W. Van trustees need jargon test 1 publicly challenge the three trustees to explain Dr. Tonkin’s jargon-filled theories. And if they can grasp his proposed solu- tions, explain them to me. I can’t. I pose this challenge too: Would you trustees favor putting . exactly the same questions measuring the knowledge, mathematical or language ability or whatever, and general intellectual sophis- ication to students rang- ing in age from under 12 to 17 and oider? 1 hardly think so. Yer that’s precisely what the survey does about the kids’ sexual, drug, alcohol, tobacco, family abuse ete. experiences. Finally, the questions used in the 1992 version were almost 100% drawn from American surveys, notably from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control (and most of those in the 1998 version still are). How relevant are these American imports to Canadians? The school board meets Tuesday night. T trust Bell-Lowther, Ferguson and Haycock will have their answers ready. And that some alert parents will be there to test them. 900 T can’t match the tribute by my col- league Noel Wright, but I belatedly extend my sympathy to former mayor Derrick Humphreys for the death of his charming wife Margaret. My heart goes out to Mr. Humphreys, who had the added huge stress of moving, last weekend to another apartment in the 2200-block Bellevue. He’s a soldier. Ifthe North Shore Light Opera Society’s production this year of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes is as entertaining as* last vear’s The Gondoliers, it deserves to be | a sellout, Ttry to see Anything Goes any time I- can — not just because of the great music but for sentimental reasons. You see, it happens to be as old as J am — 34. . Ahem, that’s 1934. It opens next Friday and then runs. *: March 14, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27. and 28, with: matinees March 15 and 22 thrown in. All | at the Centennial Theatre. Be there. -. Qo00. i What’s the skinny (as the saying goes). ~ for West Vancouver on the Greater : Vancouver Regional District's eager embrace of a new Greater Vancouver . Transit Authority? _ Simple. The North Shore will have ont one of the GVTA’s 20 votes. And it will * probably get less benefit from and con-") tribute higher property taxes to the GVTA than any other area — especially ultra-high- assessment, thinly populated, slow-growth -: West Van. ; ; 900°... I might disagree with, but I personally’ like, many people in politics — including ° among the socialist hordes. Such as the |. New Democrats’ agriculture minister, the lanky and Lincolnesque Corky Evans: .’ This week [ had occasion to interview Evans. I buttered him up outregeously, but truthtully, telling him how he had amused . my colleagues and me when he zn for party leader, with his aw-shucks charm. Yes great charm. a Corky — who used to be a logger — replied with a chuckle: “Got me off the bulldozer.” : _ — CHEUS| - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters musi include your nafne, tull address & telephone number. 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