Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 20, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press saturday june 7 the Winnipeg free press welcomes tenets from readers. Writers must give their name and address. The author s name wih be used and letters Are subject to editing readers forum no quarrel with River warnings the province has no argument what Soever with the City s decision to Post signs along certain sections of the red River warning the Public that the River is unsafe for swimming and water ski ing free press june nor do we have any quarrel with the wording on those signs. The quotations attributed to me in your Story were reported out of con text. When contacted by your reporter for reaction to the City s decision to put up signs i asked him several times to Tell me what the signs were going to say. He said he did not specifically know. He asked me if i would be in favor of a Skull and i told him i would not be in favor of such a Mes Sage because it would be unnecessarily alarmist and one sided. It was in the context of that Skull and crossbones question that i offered the comments reported in your Story not in the context of the wording on the signs As adopted. The City has taken a precautionary warning step that i its Wisdom it deems necessary. I would not presume to quarrel with that. The province May Well do the same thing on its own sections of the red River i the Winnipeg area. For the moment however we Are awaiting findings of the clean environment com Mission. . Bud Sherman minister of health Winnipeg intern insulted by medical Story As an intern at the health sciences Centre 1 wish to rebut Paul Sullivan s column of May 29. Although i have not been involved with the patient Derek Jacobson or his Mother Grace Jacob son 1 am currently completing my paediatrics rotation and your column was written i such a manner that All interns medical students etc., were both implicated and offended. It is quite understandable that mrs. Jacobson is upset Over the intravenous therapy. However her complaints Are More a Means of projecting blame because of her frustration Over her child s disease. Regardless of the Quality of care which patients receive there will Al ways be a minority of the populace dissatisfied with some aspect of medi Cal care willing to make their com plaints Public via a column such As or. Sullivan s. I resent the implication that i am practising on mrs. Jacobson s child. I and the other interns Are fully qualified doctors who have met All of the requirements for a medical degree. I resent especially the Way people refer article disputed As a reporter i always make it a Point to talk directly to the people i mention in my stories. I wish Randal Millroy had extended me the same Courtesy on the two occasions he has mentioned me in his stories recently Pascoe gives up 24 hours to follow Fiancee to Ottawa free press june 10. If he had taken a few minutes to talk to me his Story might not have had glaring errors in it. He might also have been inclined to drop the sarcastic and unfair overtones of woman gives up Job to follow her which dominated his Story. For starters or. Millroy has pre maturely assigned my Fiance Rodney Briggs to the Canadian diplomatic corps when in actual fact he is just beginning training As a foreign sen ice officer. And far from giving up anything my career prospects have never been bet Ter. 1 was fortunate to gain invaluable experience reporting for 24 hours. And i am looking Forward to broadening my journalistic credentials first in Ottawa and then abroad. Robin Pascoe Winnipeg to us with contempt As Only an intern As if we were second class citizens. We Are professionals providing a valuable service to both the Hospital and the Public. It is unlikely that any one person would take four or five attempts at starting an intravenous any Good nurse would have stopped this person after two attempts by tactfully Sug Gesting that someone else should give it a try. All interns practice on each other during third year Haematology labs. As Well during our third year anaesthesia rotation and emergency rotations we Are shown How and Given the Opportunity to Start intravenous infusions. The techniques Are the same regardless of whether this is being done on an infant or an adult. We Are not learning on the children As we already know the tech Nique. We Are carrying out an aspect of therapy necessary for the Well being of the child. Doctors Are not perfect and Are the first to admit it although the Public expects perfection. I Challenge mrs. Jacobson to find a single physician who gets every intravenous started on the first attempt. If mrs. Jacobson is truly concerned about the number of attempts to establish an intravenous perhaps she should learn the technique and Start future intravenous lines herself. This would allow her to participate More fully in the care of her child and Stop the doctors of tomorrow learning on my her flesh and mrs. Jacobson should know that she has the right to refuse medical students and interns from looking after her child which would leave care solely in the hands of the staff physician As a non teaching patient. She should be aware however that none of the House staff would be available to Check on her son or to handle minor problems which might arise. The staff Man would have to be called at All times. However with the disease in question this is neither Wise nor advisable. This column is one of the most irresponsible pieces of journalism i have come across. It is. Pure sensationalism better suited to papers such As the National enquirer. There must be better ways to utilize the space than to sensationalize this Mother s complaint. It is a shame that Praise for the staff for the Quality care that children receive never becomes a matter of Public record but the complaints of a disgruntled Mother Are used to launch a crusade against the children s Centre. Manfred Ziesmann my Winnipeg Dairy prices equitable Over the past few weeks there have been some rather wild statements in the press claiming exorbitant costs of Dairy products in Canada. These statements have been generated from technical reports prepared for the economic Council of Canada by Richard Barichello and Tim Josling economists from British Columbia and California respectively. These statements certainly must cause great concern to the Consumers. However these claims need to be put in proper perspective so Consumers will realize that they Are not being overcharged. Or. Barichello and or. Josling to calculate these figures had to use in their formulae Many assumptions All of which could be debated at great length. The millions of dollars which they claim could be saved is arrived at by assuming a policy in Canada to have no regulations in the Dairy Indus try sell Dairy products at world Price and allow All imports desired from other countries. They also assume that the Canadian producers would still produce milk at the Low world Price. This is utter nonsense. A very Large part of the milk would be imported. Or. Barichello states in his report that under present pricing Dairy farm ers have an income lower than the average Farmer in Canada. Yet he somehow makes the Assumption that they would produce milk for less per hectolitres than they Are receiving now for Industrial milk. The present Price is per hectolitres. His suggested Price would be per Hecto litre. In 1974, prior to the National formula being put into place the Price was the Price was so Low we did not produce enough milk to meet the Domestic demand resulting in importing tonnes of butter or 18.5 per cent of the butter we needed. Comparing his suggested Price of with the August 1974, Price of there is a difference of what is being claimed then is that the producer would continue in production with an or 40 per cent increase Over the clearly non incentive Price of 1974, representing an increase annually Over those six and one half years of Only 5.3 per cent or a net basis after paying levies of Only three per cent. This covers a period in which farm input prices went up 74.6 per cent or nine per cent per year and inflation marketing Board chairman defends Dairy product prices As measured by Chi Rose at 9.2 per cent annually. How could one assume we would have any volume of Canadian product Ion under those circumstances what happens to the world Price when the total requirements of Canada have to come out of world supplies do we want to to Back to a system where the Price to the consumer will Yoyo up and Down at 60 cents per litre one month and to Over a few months later surely we do not want to go Back to what happened in Manitoba when there were no regulations on milk As in the 1930s. There was such a shortage of milk under the non regu lated system that we had to import milk from Minnesota to have sufficient Supply for the bottle Trade alone never mind the Industrial part of the Industry. It was at that time that milk became a Public Utility so As to guar Antee a Supply for the consumer. To produce the Dairy products in Canada and sell at reasonable prices according to or. Barichello and or. Josling costs millions of dollars which they refer to As welfare costs. They advocate doing away with these welfare costs by importing and producing at world Price. Following that line of thinking Why do we not import All other items such As textiles cars and Many other items that can be imported at a much lower Price than they can be produced in Canada this would save billions of dollars but what would canadians be employed at think of the welfare costs we could save if we imported our labor from Mexico or from the Many other coun tries which have cheap labor and at the same time have no regulations on wages. I do not think any of us would wish to advocate such a foolish policy. Or. Barichello states that the producers Cost the taxpayer million in direct subsidies. However Mil lion of this is not a producer subsidy but is a subsidy to Consumers to keep prices Down. The average annual increase for All Dairy products Between 1975-1979 was 7.2 per cent in comparison to an in crease in the consumer Price Index of 9.2 per cent. The real Cost of Dairy products has trended Down Over the years. At the average hourly factory wage in 1960, it took 13 minutes of work to buy a half gallon of milk compared to Only nine minutes in 1979. It took 20 minutes of work in 1960 to buy a Pound of butter in comparison to 15 minutes in 1979 22 minutes of labor in 1960 for one half gallon of ice Cream As compared to 15 minutes in 1979. I Hope this letter will give the con Sumers of Manitoba some Confidence that they Are receiving their Dairy products at an equitable Price. . Rampton chairman the Manitoba milk producers marketing Board Winnipeg plan to move school from Owca hit Owca called the Best place for classes for pregnant girls i agree with those citizens who Are urging the Winnipeg school Board to reconsider its recent decision to move the special class for pregnant school girls from the Owca to Argyle school. In my experience 13 to 16-year-old girls Are extremely self conscious about their condition find it difficult at Best to continue attending classes and need much encouragement and support to Complete their school year during pregnancy. Ten years ago the school Board pioneered in recognizing this and by set Ting up a classroom for them in the Owca provided an environment which was sheltered close to medical and social services easily accessible and staffed with understanding teachers. This school program has been highly successful in maximizing the likelihood of the girls continuing their education rather than discontinuing school during and after pregnancy. A number of studies have established that single mothers with better Educa Tion have a greater Opportunity for further training employment and in come and if they choose to keep their babies Are better Able to care adequately for them. It is difficult to believe that reopening and maintaining Argyle school would prove less expensive in either the Short or Long run than continuing to rent premises at the y. I sincerely Hope that the school Board will not place these girls in an old school which is extremely difficult of Access in Winter Remote from Many needed services and recreational opportunities and would increase their exposure to the curious scrutiny of other pupils and adults. This would i am sure significantly reduce the num Ber of pregnant teenagers who would Complete their school year successful step backward for Winnipeg. Marion Wright Winnipeg birthdays mrs. Emma Godin Nee Ste. Anne Manitoba born St. Norbert Manitoba june 20, 1891. Miss Bertha Rand Winnipeg born Crystal City Manitoba june capital punishment debate hurts pc image shortly after the last Federal election conservative party Leader Joe Clark convened a strategy session with senior members of his party at which he revealed party polls showing a majority of canadians viewed a conservative As narrow minded unsympathetic and rigid. At the time Clark used the polls to impress upon his colleagues the need for the tories to update and broaden their image so that they could cease being a minority party. Clark s Success to Date has been decidedly mixed As evidenced by the move from the More right whig ele ments to unseat him As Leader and by the party s attempt a week ago to revive the Issue of capital punish ment. The conservatives had the great bad Luck of scheduling their revival of the death penalty debate on the Day that statistics Canada reported the number of murders in Canada had declined 17 per cent in the past year and that murders have gone Down every year since parliament abolished hanging in 1976. The tories put parliament through its fifth major debate on capital punishment since 1967 with a motion to refer the matter to a parliamentary committee for a six month study after Frances Russell which parliament would finally Settle the Issue with a completely free vote. The tories have chafed Ever since the 1976 abolition vote claiming it was not truly free As the government sponsored the Bill. It carried by a narrow six vote margin. The government said the rules of the House impelled it to regard the new tory motion As an Issue of non Confidence and As a result it was Defeated by a vote of 153 to 82. While the debate shed Little new Light on the Issue which one tory abolitionist my described As an odious preoccupation of the Canadian parliament it did produce several excellent speeches. Tom Mcmillan pc Hillsborough gave the Best defence of the tory motion. An abolitionist himself Mcmil Lan argued that the Issue will never be removed from the National Agenda until a majority of members of parliament on All sides of the House and most canadians Are satisfied that parliament has disposed of the question not Only with thoroughness but also with total Freedom from the shackles of party Mcmillan questioned his colleagues use of Public opinion polls to push for a return of the death penalty. I personally doubt that Many who express sup port for capital punishment hold strongly to their he said. When asked in separate polls to list the issues of major concern to them most people do not even mention capital punishment let alone put it at the top of the John Gamble pc York North gave the Best speech from the retention St Side. The my who spearheaded the movement against Clark s leadership pointed out that while the murder rate has fallen since 1976, it is still much higher than it was in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s when capital punishment was imposed. Unless we assume that a human being is like a tree in the Forest that does not think there is absolutely no doubt that anyone confronted with the Prospect of losing his own life will give serious second thoughts to the perpetration of the offence of murder. Anyone who would suggest otherwise is denying the right and ability of the human being to Maurice Dionne a Northumberland Miramichi and Bill Blaikie nip Winnipeg Birds Hill gave the Best abolitionist speeches. Dionne said aside from the necessity of the state respecting the Sanctity of life the most telling argument against the death pen Alty is its unequal application on the poor the ignorant and the uneducated and the Chance of executing the inno cent. Capital punishment has always been applied capriciously Dionne said with Only five or six executions annually when there were hundreds of Mur Ders. Blaikie accused the conservatives of pursuing the ideology of the american moral majority movement which turns a Blind Eye to poverty and social injustice and concentrates on retribution against individuals. They rail against the destruction of the family but would not consider guaranteeing families enough to live on. They rail against abortion but would abandon the child to the marketplace the minute it is born. It is Only when i perceive that members of the conservative party Are As morally outraged by the death through poverty and starvation of Mil Lions of children throughout the world As they Are about the homicide Statis tics that i will listen to Blaikie said. When i perceive that they Are genuinely morally outraged about the thousands of people who have been tortured maimed and murdered by military regimes which they sup port Only then will 1 listen to them but not the debate did t change any minds. Nor despite Mcmillan s Hope would a six month study and another vote. Cap ital punishment will be an Issue so Long As there Are politicians who keep fan Ning it. The tories should realize by now that it does t decide votes in elections and recognize they Are doing wider dam age to their party s image by continuing to revive it. Doonesbury Joan db4r.th5 cskbmowua5td i die the cab lace Tail hawed so just Hope that fast. Ice Yon blah Notata. His timing Hoffis but meant hehia5wst Johard i la think mar r Bick i h ;