Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 13, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Brian Cole 6977044 focus Winnipeg free press a 1 october decision to curtail emergency room service is unwise patients will die As a result by Mcdowell special to the free press health minister Jim Mccrae decision to close All the Emer gency rooms in the except those at Boniface and health sciences Between 10 and 8 is a false a profoundly backward step and one which is surely based on the minister denied the province was using the emergency physicians strike to test the Waters and see which Emer gency services they could politically do the proof that this was patently untrue lies in this now that the strike of the emergency physicians has been the Community hospitals Are open for but Only Between 8 and 10 after 10 the ambulances have been directed to bypass the Community hospitals and drive i cannot speak for the other Community hospitals As clinical director of the intensive care unit in Grace general hos i protest this decision most voc if not Only on behalf of the professional staff of this but even More so on behalf of the residents of Charleswood and West who will now have to travel further for acute medical care during these the Grace Hospital normally treats approximately 200 acute heart attacks annually about the same number As the health sciences Centre As Well As an equivalent number of acute coronary syndromes less severe than heart attacks but equally it is a Well known fact that approximately 60 per cent of heart attacks occur during the night we have during the last few to educate our patients to seek help earlier rather than later if they have Chest discomfort which would Indi Cate a heart As 15 minutes can mean the difference Between life and or Between Early treatment and minimal heart or later treatment resulting in severe heart the closure of the emergency room during these hours would require a patient for in finance min ister Eric Stefan sons to drive past Grace Hospital and take an extra 12to 15minute ride to the health sciences and this is clearly putting that patients life at patients will die As a one suspects some patients have already died because resuscitation efforts were delayed by 15 minutes Dur ing the recent emergency physicians the minister of health denied1 that the government was using the emergency physicians strike to test the Waters and see which emergency services they could politically do the proof that this was patently untrue lies in the announcement to curtail the government has just spent Mil lion enlarging and expanding the Emer gency department at Grace general the better to serve the Popula Tion of West Winnipeg and to relieve the increasing congestion in the old facility due to an expanding and aging Popula it has also just spent another million on the Charleswood Bridge which will vastly improve egress to Grace and its emergency room by residents of Charleswood and does it make any sense to announce that the Emer gency room will be closed for 10 out of every 24 hours Deputy health minister John Wade implied publicly recently in his Opin Only the so called teaching hospitals Hsc and Boniface were capable of dealing with acute heart such a statement is not Only but is an insult to All physicians managing heart attack patients in the Community and who do so with competence and when did speaking As he does from a background of academic administration and giving Ever set foot in a Community Hospital and when did he become an expert on myocardial infarction for the past four years the Grace Hospital has been involved in two separate International studies on the management of heart attacks and acute coronary syndromes and is embarking on two More such stud our emergency room and consulting physicians Are excited to be on the Cut Ting Edge of medical research and believe this offers a real plus to patients who seek help in our the medical and nursing staff of Grace general Hospital want to provide optimal and exemplary care to All the popu lation of our area of the City of by this the Opportunity to do so is being eroded or denied to us by Mccrae and his colleagues in the Filmon the health sciences Centre and Boniface Hospital Are tertiary care hos we appreciate the ready Access to their specialized facilities cardiac cardiac euro when we require the funnelling of All emergencies to these institutes will Only further Strain their capacity and limit their ability to provide real tertiary care to Manitoban who require it is my fervent Hope that the minis ter will realize that he has made an unwise and irresponsible that he has been receiving flawed and badly informed advice from his and that he will have the Good Grace to reverse it the residents of West Winnipeg deserve better from their elected Mcdowell is the clinical director of the intensive care unit in Grace general Hospital Community Hospital emergency rooms Are needed full Csc already a lean machine letters to the editor i read with interest your Edito How to Cut the Csc As president of the Cana Dian Media which represents about production including at the corp i have a different View about the abcs current budget cutting you suggest canadians want agencies like the Csc to be leaner and More i agree in the Guild has taken the Lead in a television news Experiment in which reporters also operate their own to cameras an Experiment that promises gains in productivity and through contract weve suggested ways to find other efficiencies through a major reorganization of the what troubles me is the Sugges Tion that cutting million Over the next 18 months will have Only a minimal Impact on and lets not forget theres another million to your editorial suggests and canadians say the Csc be dramatically scaled that precisely what will take that kind of Money out of the Csc and our viewers and listeners will see and hear the difference in our programs in the near cuts of this magnitude wont Sim ply trim the administrative because theres nowhere near that much administrative fat on the your editorial also asks whether the Csc needs two reporters to cover the same Story one for the National and another for the local in you should know two reporters Are used Only on major that to meet the demands of serving two the main network and As for your comments on elec Tion regional stations do what is necessary to provide top notch and that sometimes Means building an appropriate set to help television after a visual medium deliver a Clear Ray Aboud Toronto not your typical Farmer the Pilot Mound Farmer charged with writing bad cheques As described in the free was not a typical the general Public in the Pilot Mound and Crystal City areas takes exception to the comment made by ramp Constable Don How to reach us the free press welcomes letters from letters must be signed and should include a clearly printed address and Telephone names will be published but not All letters May be edited for style and Short letters Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg r2x letters can be sent to our fax number letters May be submitted through the internet at letters letters sent via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone As reported by Paul if the charges Laid result in con the accused Man should be described As your typical typical Farmers work pay their Bills and their own they resent the inappropriate comment made by Coulthard and 185 others Pilot Mound and area workers must unite now what a flip Flop has taken place in the world of it really want All that Long ago that labor the vast majority of us was relatively United while the corporate elite was relatively the opposite is Arent organizations like the business Council on National Canadian federation of Independent chamber of and think tanks like the Fraser Institute merely organized command posts and planning committees what about actions like the implementation of the new econ the created Hys the War on social the created jobless recovery of the past five year and Trade agreements like the 88 free Trade agreement and the Naftal Arent these direct responses to the corporate desire for relentless labor discipline labor the vast majority of us had better reunite very Curtis Moore Winnipeg gun control supported by remains a contentious death penalty matter of Justice opponents of capital punishment consistently perhaps deliberately misconstrue the contrary to their capital punishment is not advocated for reasons of deterrence it How advocated in the interests of some crimes Are so unspeakably heinous in society can effect a mod icum of Justice Only through Capi Tal just and decent societies execute serial killers that is a truth which no amount of relativist and materialist sophistry can Graeme Voyer Winnipeg redirect Money to Stop crime Bill the Liberal government document attempting to strengthen our gun Laws is now being deliberated in the most of the controversy is Over mandatory firearms Justice min ister Allan Rock estimates a setup Cost of approximately million but wont deny the Cost could be much there is no doubt of his resolve in this matter but his logic needs to be rocks position is according to surveys and the majority of canadians want this legislation passed if this is and pub Lic opinion plays such a Large part in the forming of our will he follow through in other areas i refer to the 1995 readers poll which states that 70 per cent of the canadians surveyed wish the reinstatement of the death penalty in certain and a full 85 per cent feel that the parole sys tem in our country is woefully will his government ensure that the majority prevails in these matters As Well pouring tens of millions of Dol Lars into a program that is Heerly speculative in its effect against crime is grate and totally lets redirect these funds to where they Are sorely needed More police offi harsher penalties and a revamped Justice and penal sys tem that actually deters which is 156 per cent higher than in an million make work project for Allan Rock is a blatant waste of Bradley Winnipeg Good service is Good business i would like to share with you and All free press readers an Inci Dent that warmed the heart of everyone in our it made us proud of our provincial several weeks ago after shop Ping at Costco in in the commotion and chaos of loading up our a half dozen boxes of Choc air chocolate bars were forgotten on the Bottom shelf of our shopping it was not until we unloaded the groceries into our pantry Here at Home that we realized the Choc air bars were miss ing a phone Call to Costco the next morning proved to be most Gratis the Cho Clairs had been found in the parking lot and brought to customer we could pick them up any several weeks later our in Winnipeg on stopped in at Costco and was presented with the six boxes of Choc air completely it is not the restoration of our chocolate bars alone that inspires me to write this letter after chocolate is a luxury item More i wish to commend the integrity and generosity of the individuals this positive experience brings encouragement and an example of sincerity for All to especially in View of All the negative news were exposed to on a daily on behalf of our entire comm i extend Heartfelt appreciation to the persons Helen waldner Macgregor doonesbury by Garry Trudeau 4 ;