Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 6, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Brian Cole 6977044 focus Winnipeg free press 4 4 october n Small communities must stand up for medical care recruitment of physicians has become a critical Issue for Many Manitoba commune there continues to be a significant Hett iof f having of physician resources out of Rural Manitoba for a variety of Competition for scar be physician resources is stiff among Rural communities of All recent news stories regarding the health ministers proposal to recruit German physicians does Little to ease the but rather heightens this Banda id solution would Only cover and hide the festering wound of rather than attempt to find a cure by encouraging physicians to Settle in Rural areas and compensate those who choose to there was reason to be hopeful this summer when Manitoba health offered a new compensation pack age f6r physicians who provide 24 hour coverage in Many Rural and Northern to the credit of those dedicated doctors involved in negotiating this Onvall it should go a Long Way towards easing physician workloads and improving patient care in those while not unlike other deals in other it represents the first time our provincial government has acknowledged that a vital medical which Rural physicians have provided All is under the same funding arrangement May in fact be the downfall of certain Small communities where it does not physicians in designated communities outside Winnipeg Are now being paid an hourly or daily depend ing on the Stee of for provid ing emergency room and Onvall coverage during evenings and most were previously compensated by a f ref Rosef vice which was sorely inadequate for working extended hours in addition to their office the problem is that salaried and contract physicians Are not being compensated under the new pay ment which was effective july while our counterparts Are finally getting paid for the excellent service they pro we continue providing 24hour coverage without equitable compel at Manitoba health has offered salaried or contract doctors less than 30 per cent of what a fee for service physician is paid for the same hours of another proposal would see us working a month to earn what physicians at a facility of comparable size and volume Are paid f of working one or what emergency department physicians in Portage la Prairie receive of less than 11 hours another obstacle to recruiting Small town physicians is the current pay scale of salaried or contract the formula used by Manitoba health is outdated and the current salary Range is inferior compared to that of other provinces More so compared to the United these Gross inequities Are among the Many Subtle and hints that the Manitoba government regards medical services in Small Rural ones that employ salaried or contract be irrelevant and As a essential services such As Onvall and personal care Ana even primary care in Community clinics May disappear altogether because there wont be physicians to provide potentially affected communities include Crystal Pilot Shoal keeping medical services is a concern for Remote Birtle and Many inability to recruit replacements for departing or retiring physicians places added stress on those who this will certainly Eon tribute to burnout and dissatisfaction among physicians dedicated to providing High standards of care to their it will cause a further exodus of what might have been career Rural who had wanted to be permanent fixtures in their chosen who then will look after their patients the Dan Ger is perhaps this is a deliberate attempt to squeeze physicians out of Small communities As part of some unwritten and unspoken master plan a plan that appears to devalue the services offered in Small and it is hard to envision larger centres accepting More patients when they Are wet burdened and understaffed them the time to stand up for Small communities in Rural Manitoba is if we do not make a statement during this critical phase of healthcare it May be too late to prevent the further deterioration and eventual demise of med ical services in those the Choice is if the Issue of local health care is important to or to a member of your i urge you to raise these critical issues with your Rha Tives and with local and provincial by working our communities cannot be easily dismissed As letters to the editor herbs can be As deadly As drugs on you published a let Ter to the editor by Diane Mur Ray headed dont treat herbs like the opinions expressed were largely based on the fact that your contributor was not aware of death due to in fact herbs Are just As capable of causing toxic Sid effects As any chem ical a few years i treated a woman who died of acute liver cell where the Only identifiable causative Factor was some imported chinese herbal a review of the medical literature at that time indicated while Many herbal medicines appear to be there Are others with definite toxic if agencies like the Federal health Protection Branch Are not involved in monitoring the use of such there is Likely to be no reporting of Adverse reactions and no recognition that these substances May cause Seri Ous toxicity and even so people will continue to use them with a false sense of just because something is natural does not mean that it is let alone effective or appropriate to sub stances produced by plants can have As much toxic potential As substances produced by the chemist and warrant similar monitoring for Efficacy and Quality otherwise the dollars saved can Cost health and Winnipeg cat owners beware finally someone at City Hall actually had a brain wave and proposed the cat bylaw that has responsible types singing its praises and selfish types i suppose none of you selfish cat owners have considered the real Ger of your cat passing on the disease toxoplasmosis to pregnant women who have to clean up your cats excrement out of their childrens Sand or the same danger of a Young child touching a piece of not washing his then putting Bis hands in his Mouth and contracting the disease my children have stepped in fresh cat excrement that was simply left on my not my anger at having my personal space so dese crated exploded and i now trap any cat that ventures into my Yard and it meets a merciful end at the humane none of the cats so far have been reclaimed by their while i do feel a twinge when Ive trapped a cat whose owner i i just remember my children crying because they stepped in fresh someone else i know traps cats then drowns cat owners people have bad Winnipeg Good schooling helps erase poverty Benjamin Levin has apparently Given up in Bis shorn be poverty free sept Mlevin claims that solv ing the unemployment and poverty problems Are the Only Way to achieve wow How to reach us 770 free press welcomes letters from letters must be signed and should include a clearly printed address and Telephone names will be published for style and Short letters Are less Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg r2x letters can be sent to our fax letters May be submitted through the internet at letters sent via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone of poverty by increasing their it is a dangerous viewpoint my family started out in a House in the City with no Furnace and no plumb we were poor by anybody Stan because we had Access to Public schools that used a rigorous program of we were Able to turn that upward mobility is Only possible when the Public schools do their the two countries that scored the highest in the last round of International math and science Japan and have very Little in except that they never adopted the latest pedagogical children receive direct not the child centred learning program we have where the teacher is merely a which Are required school supplies Are not allowed and students have to learn math tables the Way we by Rote Are we supposed to wait for the socialist with equal income before we tackle the task of fixing our schools perhaps the answer lies in shutting Down Levins faculty of continuing Educa Tion and giving its budget to the Levin claims that Canadian Stu dents score about As Well As they Ever did on International this can be read As quite he if More proof is needed that curriculum integrity and educational philosophy Are the keys to school take another look at that when the teachers themselves regard Good grammar As what Chance do the children have Dennis Owens Winnipeg trustees Survey shoddy prepared recently i received the school vey sent to Homes in Ward 3 of Nipes school division by trustee Mike a Good Public education can help children beat the poverty says a Reader who did just yes or no Are there Are too Many variables that have to be to such absolute for 32 should there be Spe Cial classes for children with special needs it requires Little knowledge to realize that this topic cannot be with a it would require More space than a letter to the editor would allow me to react to All the concerns i have regarding All the i have prepared several surveys Over the years As an employee of the Winnipeg school i would have been taken to task if i had pre pared any Survey As shoddy As the one distributed by my request is that Babinsky thank All those who do Complete the apologize to them for wasting their time and then destroy the computer users have a phrase garbage in garbage info Stu the first part of the process has Terry Clifford Winnipeg students need valued teachers How Good to see quite a Long article looking into the fallacies of the Grade 3 math test a Mark that could yield a wrong free the Basic Point made by the writer cannot be overemphasized that to reduce a human being to a number is let alone there is More to the fundamental Lack of thinking and under standing revealed in the examples of the test there is the question of How the scores Are for does the Marker have a list of Correct explanations or of things you learn that gain or lose Marks to characterize these trivial questions As problem solving is to live in an educational fantasy these Are not problems for the Chil they Are what adults have decided to Label which can then be drilled in exactly the same Way As the multipueali9n with the same level of As the article makes Clear in the Case of the James if we want children to learn to think for and to understand More of what goes on around we can Only do so by valuing teachers who think for themselves and who show understanding of at least the major forces of our sad that is exactly what the minister of education and the bureaucracy of divisions and schools pay lip service of for a modicum of honesty Derwyn Davies Winnipeg thank you for condolence books we let the free press readers know what we thought about our beloved we Send the with a Pathy to Princess dianas i thank Premier Gary for allowing letters to be dropped of f at the legislative building and for the condolence books to Maria Goessler Winnipeg i have no inherent objection to com and jul be of Benefit to some group and that seek information in an objective manner1 object to surveys that Are designed to solicit predetermined doonesbury by Harry Trudeau Ity for my daughters education and i Trust that the Survey was designed in ignorance of elementary knowledge of objective if this is oot the one it would be a mag nature of trusteeship from whose career is sup Many of the questions posed relate to ;