Health

Eleanor
Godley

THE VINTAGE YEARS

IT GETS scary.

We old folks have been lulled,

or have lulled ourselves, into a
’ feeling of security. Subsidized se-
curity. We-could be making: an
awful mistake.

I am just one old lady with a
costly problem, there are many in
greater jeopardy than I. I ac-
knowledge I have a responsibility
to keep myself in good order to
stall further drains on the health
purse; loxs of others are too frail
to undertake remedial action and
so require expensive physical care
as well as pharmaceutical.

It was a concatenation of news

. releases and public health reports
and my own needs that put me in
this very serious. frame of mind.

First, the federal government
dismissed the appeal of the generic
drug producers and came down on
the side of more expensive copy-
tight production for the next 20
years.

‘ Then the B.C. Royal Commis-

sion on Health Care and Costs

issued its report, underlining the

Statement that services to us
“seniors in this province currently
_ use 40% of their budget.

:. Forty per cent!

| USEYOUR
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YOUR HEART.

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And then I found I had to
renew the two prescriptions | re-
quire for keeping my damaged
heart ticking over.

You're old, like me, you go to
the pharmacy with your magic
gold care-card, you give them the
number of your prescription, they
give you the goods and ask $5.25
per preparation for their expertise
as vendors of solace and relief.

You walk away, in my case,
with more than $275 worth of
medication that is going to last a
maximum of three months and a
bit.

And according to all signs and
portents this is going to go on for
the rest of my life.

One of these prescriptions goes
into me twice a day and is costing
British Columbians $1.25 each day
for the two. The other is the
smasher — just one at bedtime,
but every time I swallow one I’ve
just swallowed $2.08 of taxpayers’
money.

Very sobering stuff. it adds up.
Fast.

I know | am not single-handed-
ly putting the health care budget
on the skids, but multiply me by

Sterne’

Pam wea featatdoncele

Sunday, February 9, 1992 ~ North Shore News - 35

thousands, then add the free days
in hospital, the surgery, the
palliative care, the complex and
costly machines and highly
educated people who are at our
beck and call and ready to mend
us and restore us and give us fur-
ther opportunity for enjoying our
declining years.

It’s a prize-winning program,
the whole world admires it and
envies it and we ourselves take too
much of it for granted, I fear.

That provincial report’s findings
are presently the subject of study
by the Lionsview Seniors’ Plan-

cost figures a sobering medicine

ning Society. They are holding a
series of public forums, open to
all, and well worth your attention.

The first was held in the last
week of January in North Shore
Neighbourhood House and was
attended by a lot of interested
people. Most of those people wore
the faces one sees at all local
health forums, though — there
were not enough of the people
who are not caregivers and
meals-cn-wheeis workers and
congregate-meal contributors and
respite providers and transit ex-
perts.

You can earn between

$50-$100 per month

delivering the North

Shore News either. Sundays, Wednesdays or
Fridays. There are no cailections so it leaves
you plenty of time to do the things you want.

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