Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 25, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba A h Winnipeg free june 1997 Brian Cole 6977044 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights too Many als concerns of Rural Manitoban facing the loss of their local hospitals Are understand even but that does not mean their hospitals should stay a study by Manitoba health has found 16 Rural hospitals have average occupancy rates of 38 per and at most Beds in use Are occupied by persons awaiting space in nursing the study finds Only about one in five Beds is actually being used for what they were intended acute from a bean counters Point of that is All the justification needed to close the Beds the Cost per patient is too great and consolidation of service in regional hospitals will both bring Down costs and improve care by improving the ratio and mix of caregivers to the people in the 16 How Are not bean coun ters and they will and probably should accept change strictly on grounds of costs and Ben there Are More compelling Rea the first is that they Are not being asked to close their they Are being asked to assess the health care needs of their such assessments will show their needs for personal care especially in aging Are greater than the need for acute care enlightened self interest alone dictates that resources be placed where they Are needed in not acute which is not to say Rural communities have no need for acute care of course they but the need for a bed in which to recover from an appendectomy should not be confused with the Emer gency needs of a patient suffering serious trauma or cardiac both of those emergencies can be handled As Well by a Community health Centre with staff trained to Deal with emergencies As they can be handled by Small hospitals that typically stabilize serious cases and then move them to regional Hospi tals the person recovering from the Appen can recover just As Well in a regional the value of a health Centre also should not be Dis when Saskatchewan replaced 51 Rural hospitals with health the affected communities were better getting modern treatment centres and services in Exchange for outdated the primary values of which were symbolic and postal some communities argue that the potential for eco nomic development will disappear with their Hospi that May be but it fails to acknowledge that health care is not an engine of it is a precious and expensive service that we guarantee to if economic development is it should come from a separate and if it occurs and a Hospital is that is the Point at which it should be tying health to economic jobs and political expediency is Why we came to have too Many underutilized hospitals in the first As hard As it May be to towns should look at what they need from health not what they such an examination will logically Lead to Clos ing some it also logically should Lead to improvements in Home care and ambulance sign from Ukraine the removal of Pavlo Lazarenko from the office of prime minister in the Wake of a corruption scandal should not our Confidence in the government of certainly Lazarenko removal a week after he was in where he was feted and treated with the respect appropriate for a is a Black Eye for Canadia ukrainian and reports that Lazarenko picked the pockets of his countrymen to the tune of Mil lion by jacking up Gas prices is a worrisome reminder that Rich men in Ukraine today Likely did not earn All their chances Are they got it by robbing the nation of Industrial assets the people jointly owned under communism but which fell into the hands of apparatchiks after the soviet Empire col or they got it from bribes and extortion that Are commonplace both of these practices have been major impediments to Trade Between Ukraine and How do you do business with someone you cant or who expects kickbacks you which is what president Leonid Kuchma acknowledged by dumping fir ing a corrupt prime minister obviously reminds us that corruption exists at the very highest echelons in it also tells that in corruption will not be that is a very Posi Confidence building Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press eur 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Rudy publisher email in Ca Nicholas hirs1 editor Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Harry Brown circulation sales and marketing Ian Cummins technology Laurie Verne Kalichuk human resources Glenn Williams finance and administration 1997 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of the Manitoba press Council Vul 120 nu17i tories hide from Public the business ethos not Only controls but is remaking them in its business is the Antithesis of democracy is con ducted in the business is conducted in secret democracy is business is top Down democracy operating principles Are discus communication and con business operating principles Are Hierarchy and the Canadian landscape is Dot Ted with governments that find democratic debate an unpleasant and the obligation to listen to the people an impractical perhaps the most extreme expressions of this attitude have occurred in the past year in Ontario and in Manitoba the conservative government used a compliant speaker to ride roughshod Over centuries of parliamentary rules and traditions and ram through its Bill to privatize the Manitoba Telephone sys tem despite the fact two thirds of Manitoban were so determined was the government to get its deed done when it wanted it that it was prepared to deny the opposition the right to speak for two in the government staged a coup de Tat on the legis Frances Russell standing the Precept of responsible government on its this the government is intent on screening itself from As much Public scrutiny As it can through new amendments to its Freedom of information two Mack truck relates and have been put into the Law to give the government virtual carte Blanche to refuse to produce at some All government information relates to something that or might before Cabinet or a that is not the Only sign of on Premier Gary Filmon accused nip jus Tice critic Gord Mackintosh Johns of dealing in matters of slime rather than substance because he asked a question about government Mackintosh had queried the Choice of Hugh a for Mer president of the premiers constituency and Peter a business partner of the premiers to head an investigation into the chief medical examiners questions about patronage Are the Stock in Trade of opposition the Filmon tories most in they dont believe they should be the tory majority on a legislative committee reviewing the child advocate legislation rejected an opposition motion to Call family services minister Bonnie Michelson to the com Mittee chairman also moved to strike comments by nip family services critic Doug Martindale Burrows from the record because they repeated something that had occurred during an in camera earlier this Ontario pushed through its legislation amalgamating metropolitan Toronto despite a plebiscite showing some 75 per cent of citizens opposed to the and the same government plans a major overhaul of House rules to curtail the right of the opposition and the Public to know what it is one major change would allow the government to hold night sit Tings and deem them the next Day to steamroll Bills through first second committee consideration and third Reading within a another Rule change would shorten the daily question period and schedule it later in the question period is the oppositions chief tool to hold the government publicly government House Leader Dave Johnson has held out the possibility of but says the government wants to make the House More effect in the oppositions that Means limiting the oppositions right to delay legislation and the Public right to know about let alone be heard on that not what democracy is Ontario nip House Leader Bud Wildman a democracy Means that govern ment must listen to the must inform them and must ask them for their a growing num Ber of governments regard legislative debate democracy As an obstacle to the efficient exercise of a quaint relic out of place in an Era when corporate and Market principles have become a new secular Reli and even More the general Public wont see the relationship Between the Protection of parliamentary institutions and Basic human rights until it will be too Frances Russell covers politics for the free her column appears wednesdays and from broken to broke at City Hall it is amazing How much politicians can achieve in a fairly Short time if they really put their minds to six years ago this everyone was complaining that City Hall was broken not As it seems there were too Many Council lors spending too much Money and too Little All those bodies were slowing Down the efficient operation of the All those opinions were causing confusion about where the City stood on such pressing issues As business or so said the chamber of to the Rescue Rode the Filmon it chopped the num Ber of councillors by half in order to produce those blessed efficiencies politicians Are cer Tain or will exist As soon As they take six years voters no longer can efficiently reach their councillors too Many too few you can reach your tory but then they very wisely represent about half As Many constituents As do Council six years the efficient Little Council costs four times As much to salaries have doubled to about and communication allowances Worth per councillor have been introduced to help fewer councillors communicate with More and All that red tape six years business at City Hall moves As slowly As slowly As business at City ask Sam with hell get approval to Start building a base Ball stadium when its too late to save his team or Host the Panama six years ago Bill Norrie was he was a Dull every one he wore Bland he too closely with the adm Nistra he maintained labour peace at too great a Cost to he didst Call City workers Lazy or As Many knew them to he built consensus when he should have shown dynamic he had with the minor exceptions of the Core area the North Portage the Forks and River pantages preservation of the heritage buildings and other Odds and ends no he lacked the vision thing and instead repaired sidewalks and maintained sewer and and paved under spending was out of we were taxes were increasing at the rate of year year out like the proverbial chinese water Tor Why did taxes have to increase when the City had Mil Lions and millions in Reserve accounts that some believed were simply slush funds that bureaucrats and politicians raided whenever they ran into a Little trouble no in the election six years we got a so called righting Council determined to hold Down Susan Thomp who replaced Bill led the her vision thing was a tax freeze resulting from greater six years taxes have increased much faster than inflation 18 per a tax freeze was achieved once by unde Bud getting Snow removal at six years later those darned reserves Are All but the roads Are pot the sidewalks Are roads Are unpaved in they wont even be swept this summer and sewer maintenance has been but the cites workforce has been put in its place with a generous no cuts contract to keep them there is no playing Footsie with the administration in Back rooms its bar knuckled brawling in Public that we consensus building is now we have but without everything about City Hall is fractious and while nor Rie and his minions seemed to want us to not worry and be Thompson and hers seem to want us to worry and Carp and complain and grumble and Point the measure of How much things have improved Over the past six years will be Clear today when City Council votes to accept from Manitoba Public insurance to hire six police offi cers to put a Stop to car this abdication of responsibility to provide adequate policing is a Fine example of How much our when they really put their minds to can achieve in a very Short rime it gives me Herald flood is a free press editorial his column ;