HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 1979-05-23, Page 4Page 4—Liclsww Sentinel, Wedneoday, May 23, 1979
The Letters to the editor
LUCKNOW SENTINEL
LUCKNOW, ONTARIO
"The Sepoy Town" Established 1873
On the Huron -Bruce Boundary Published Wednesday
Published by Signal-Staiublishing Ltd.
Sharon J. Dietz - Editor
Anthony N. Johnstone - Advertising and
General Manager
Subscription rate, Si l per year in advance
Senior Citizens rate, $9 per year in advance
U.S.A. and Foreign,,S21.50 per year in advance
Sr. Cit., U.S.A. and Foreign $19.50 per year
in advance
Business and Editorial Office Telephone 528-2822
Mailing Address P.O. Box 400, Lucknow, NOG 2H0
Second class mail registration number - 0847
Back to square one
For the hundreds of people who are
vitally interested in health care for this
communitythere is just one word -
disillusionment. The problem posed by
the decision of the health ministry to cut
back on the number of active treatment
beds at the Wingham and District
Hospital is back to something less than'
square one.
To recap briefly: several months ago
the ministry, in an° effort to cut, health`
care costs, ordered the closure of 14
active treatment beds at the Wingham
hospital. A penalty of S168,000 was
imposed on, the hospital board when the
beds were not closed out by. April 1. At a
meeting at the public school last month
residents of the entire area expressed
their grave concern and total opposition
to the bed reduction.
The hosital's executive director, Nor-
man Hayes anda few members of the
board met with Health Minister Dennis
Timbrell in Toronto and came home with
the encouraging report that with certain.
compromises in position the cutbacks
could be avoided and the money restored..
A few days later ;a delegation from the
board and the local citizens', committee,
met with the minister and his aides in
Toronto, ,the
by MPP Murray
Gaunt. At that meeting the minister and
his assistant deputy minister, Dr. Allan
Dyer, said on at least three occasions the
designation of the 14 beds as chronic care
beds would guarantee restoration of the
money previously allocated as a penalty
and that the beds could then be used for
either chronic care or active treatment as
need arose. There is no doubt whatever.
about the promise - the words "floating
beds" and "swing beds" were used.
Another proposal under discussion and
one which the ministry people responded
to with definite enthusiasm was a com-
plete change in the health care delivery
system which could- be achieved `by the
establishment of a Health Services
Organization (HSO). The Wingham dele-
gation left the meeting with the under-
standing that the ministry would be quite
prepared to provide funding for such an
HSO conversion. The ministry also
promised to send representatives to
Wingham to provide full details of the
HSO concept.
The health ministery team did come to
Wingham May 8, headed by Dr. Dyer,
Meeting with members of the hospital
board, . members of the medical staff and
some concerned members of of the public
Dr.. Dyer made it clear that the Wingham
Hospital could expectno change in the
ministry'sintentionto cut back on active
treatment beds. Rather than accepting
the designation of 14 beds for chronic
care he said thatthe figure had been, -
reduced to seven beds.. He denied that
anything had .been said at the Toronto
meeting about "floating" beds for use as
either chromic or active.,
To the Editor:
Word has been received of
the death_ of Mrs. Elizabeth
Helen (Smith) Swenson, Ap-
ril 21, 1979, Assiniboia
Saskatchewan.
Mrs. Swenson was born on
concession 5, Kinloss Town-
- ship, the daughter of Mr.
and Mrs.. Alexander (Sandy)
Smith. ' She married Albin
Swenson April 9, 1915 and
went to live on a farm in the
Maxstone district of Sask-
atchewan, later moving to
Assiniboia.
The Swensons had a family
of seven, three sons and four
daughters, a son and daugh-
ter are deceased. Mr. Swen-
son passed away February 3,
1972. `
Elizabeth was the last of
the Smith family. Her broth-
ers, William, John and Ge-
orge and her sister, Marg-
aret, Mrs. Allen , Turner,
having passed away several
years ago.
When the discussion finally got around
to what was • to have been the one
important subject of the meeting, the
HSO plan, Dr. Dyer denied that there was
any intention on the part of the ministry
to provide the necessary capital funds for
conversion of the hospital to its role in a
Health Services Organization.
So. much for the. credibility, of the
provincial government and • its senior
officials,!
There was no answer forthcoming
when local doctors asked what they would
be ekpected to do when they found . no
beds in which to place seriously sick
patients.
When a more detailed explanation of
the HSO concept.was finally forthcoming
it became abundantly clear that. it would
be a scheme to appeal to a doctor's
(implied) sense of greed so that he would
keep patients out of hospital in the hope
of earning a bonus at the end of the fiscal
year. (The converse implication; of
course, is that doctors are presently
wasting hospital bed space by careless
admitting , practices.)
A year ago the Wingham and District
Hospital Foundation was established, as
an ancillary organization devoted to the
establishment of a plan for ""holistic'
health care - under which all causes of
illness would '\ come under study and
treatment, hopefully before . hospitaliza-
• tion would be necessary. That concept
was aimed at .one object only - The most.
` intelligent means ofreducing not merely
health care costs, but more important,
the suffering of individuals. The. HSO
plan as outlined by the ministry officials
is simply a means of shifting respon-
siNlity-tosomeone else's shoulders when
health care funds are chopped.
Wingham Advance -Times
Yours sincerely,
Annie (Hughes) Kennedy,
Listowel, Ont.
Class reunion
To the Editor:
Some members of the class
that graduated from F. E.
Madill Secondary School in
1969 are planning a class
reunion for this summer, to
be held the weekend .of
August 3rd to 6th. If any of
your readers would be inter-
ested inattending, they
should contact Mrs. Donna
Sutton . at P.O.. Box 298,
Lucknow, Ontario, NOG 2H0
or telephone 528-2119.
I would also appreciate •
receiving addresses of those
classmates that no . longer.
reside in the district.
•
Yours. truly,
Donna Sutton.
Poor grammar
May 16, 1979.
The Editor,
The Lucknow Sentinel,
LUCKNOW, .'Ontario.
Dear 'Sir,
As I read the press of
today, daily and weekly, and
both • in Canada and the
United States, I become
increasingly . appalled at the
growing evidence of . incom-
petence on the part of staff
writers and contributors,
both, to the papers. Each
issue of a paper exhibits
dozens and dozens, even
hundreds, of examples' of a
lack of. knowledge of spel-
1 ling, syntax, punctuation,
simple rules of grammar,
and proper word usage.
Editorially, and out in
society, we decry the deter-
ioration of the quality of
education today that turns
linguistic misfits loose in our
, society to exhibit through
• their writings, and speech,
their almost complete lack of
knowledge of the proper
usage of their mother
tongue. Educators hasten to
defend the educational sys-
tem, and, in their own
opinion, its quality. On the
other hand universities are
now instituting basic English
courses for entering candid-
ates, so that they may be
brought up to a Grade 13
level of competence to fit
them for .University ., en-
trance. This has become
necessary because of the low
quality of English education
that out present-day stud-
entsreceive in our school.
system, the education that
the educatgrs are so quick to
defend.
Each time I read a copy of
a newspaper in which there
are a great number of espec-
ially glaring English. or Lang-
' uage errors, I vow to sit down
and write to the Editor of that
particular paper. To date I
have not. However, after
reading this week's issue of
the Sentinel, I finally made
the decision to' proof read the
paper, marking the errors I
found with a highlighter. It
should be treated for a very
serious case of measles. I
gave up proofreading on
page 16. In those 16 pages I
have found 237 errors in
spelling, syntax, punctua-
tion, word usage, and the
rules of grammar. There are
even several instances of an
article ending abruptly at the
bottom of a page, etc. but not
continuing elsewhere in the.
paper, thereby leaving the
reader up in the air, unsat-
isfied. My highlighter gives
almost every . page the ap-
pearance of an outbreak- of
measles.
We wonder just where the
proofreaders of this country,
and the U.S.A. are when.
correcting copy, both written
and contributed.
The low quality of English
education today can not be
charged to our educators
totally. The daily, and weekly
press, as well as all other
printed 'inedia, must also
shoulder a Large part of the
blame and'. responsibility, for
when society reads a paper
such .as today's issue of the
Sentinel, with all the horrible
examples .of..what not to do to
the English language; -.,they
soon find themselves imitat-
ing these errors in their own,
daily lives.
I "am not applying for a
position as a, proofreader for
the Sentinel, or its sister
publications. I am concerned
about the terrible downward
slide on which our knowledge
and usage of our mother
tongue, English, is travel-
ling. I am also concerned that
in Canada, where we are
disturbed about foreign own-
ership, we are allowing the
cannibalization of out lang-
uage by the encroachments
of Americanized english and
spellings.
Yours very truly,
"Pinecrest Manor Ltd.,
George A. Newbold,
President.
Cancer campaign
raises $2860.
To the Editor:
Once again the people of
Lucknow and surrounding
community have been most
generous in their donations
to the Cancer Campaign for
1979. $2864.50 has been
received with a small amount
expected to come in yet. The
Cancer Society would like to
thank everyone for their kind
donations and want them to
know that this is a big help
towardbeating the dread
disease.
Our most sincere thanks
also goes to the team cap-
tains, the Reids Corners
Women's Institute, the Kair-
shea Women's Institute and
the Holyrood Women's Insti-
tute for their help in organ-
izing the canvas throughout
the area.
Team captains were Doris
Eadie, Bill and Beryl Hunter,
Anna Johnstone, Anna
Kreutzweiser, Ruth Thomp-
son, Mary ..Lavis, • Lorna
Guay, Mildred Loree, Lorene
Conley, Norma Humphrey.
Canvassers were Jane Ham-
ilton, Myrtle Percy, Doris
Eadie, Wilma Elliott, Mrs: J.
Scott, Mrs. Frank Maulden,
Wm. G. Hunter, Jack Rit-
chie, Grace Elliott, Wanda
Damsma, Kathleen MacDon-
ald, Margaret. Wilson, Mar-
ion McKinnon, Marguerite.
Sanderson, Arnetta. Thomp-
son, Anna Johnstone, Wm.
Schmid, Margaret Finlay,
Margaret MacDonald, Billy
McInnes, Mildred Cameron,
Shirley Bolt,. Anna Kruetr-
weiser; Lois 'McIntosh, Betty
Emberlin, Beatty Irwin, Ruth
Thompson, Betty McDon-
agh, Olive Warren, Margaret
Hamilton, Margaret . 'Doel-
man,. Alice Ritchie, Anna
MacDougall, Harry Lavis,
Margaret Collyer, Muriel
MacKenzie, • Rhea Whitby,
-Don.alda Moffat, Lorna Guay,
,Irene' Hodgins, Audrey Gard-
ner, Jean McLeod, - Marie
Scott, Barb Sanderson, Lor-
raine MacPherson, Hennie
Hilverda, Mildred Loree, Jim
McNaughton, Margaret
Stanley, Bonnie Taylor, Ev-
elyn Little, Joanne. Pentland,
Elaine Steer, Lorene Conley,
Bernice Davies,. Donna Sut-
ton, Mary Henderson,Irene
Emmerton, B. Goodhue, Ann
Boyd, N. Danforth, C. Mar-
shall, Myrtle Ferguson,. Dor-
othy Barnes, Gordon Farrell,
Georgie Mitchell, Freida Col-
lins, Duncan Thorburn, B.
Messenger, . Margaret Mart-
in, Shirley Brooks.
Jane Treleaven.
V�...
so more
will , live
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