The Citizen, 1996-07-03, Page 4BLUE
RIBBON
AWARD
1995
Photo by Janice Becker
Letters
THE EDITOR,
When the Huron County Board
of Education voted recently to
write a letter to MPP Helen Johns
and to David Tsubouchi indicating
its willingness to participate in the
new workfare initiative, the
executive of the Huron Women
Teachers' Association expressed
some serious concerns about its
implementation. While it is very
laudable to give others who are less
fortunate the opportunities to build
their skills and self-esteem in a co-
op/credits-for-service adult
education model, the WTA
executive feels that some very
important caveats need to be
considered.
1) It is absolutely imperative that
a sound screening process be in
place for the safety and security of
students and staff, and of their
personal property. It is most
important that an interview/
screening process be in place for
workfare participants who have
contact with or access to our
students. This is no more than we
would expect of our hired
personnel. The public entrusts the
welfare of its little ones to the
education system, and we must do
our utmost to earn that public trust
and safeguard our students.
2) The Women Teachers'
Association is also concerned about
the responsibilities centred around
the termination of welfare benefits
to individuals who do not perform
acceptably in the system. Teachers
do not wish to be directly or
indirectly responsible for
terminating the benefits of
individuals, their families and their
children — children who may,
indeed, be within our own
education system!
3) As well, we feel that teachers,
who have already been greatly
impacted by the double whammies
of an add-on curriculum in a
cutback economy, will now be
expected to take on yet another role
— that of supervising workfare
participants. In some cases
workfare participants may prove to
be a great asset to teachers in the
classroom — in others, the teacher
may, in effect, be adding an extra
student, (albeit an adult), to her
already burgeoning classroom
responsibilities!
Custodians, principals, and
secretarial/technical staff will also
feel the pressures of an extra role.
We feel that employees of the
Huron County Board of Education
should be given a personal choice
of whether or not they wish to
participate in the workfare
program.
4) The WTA also has some
ethical concerns around the
governments' policies with respect
to the discontinuance of family
benefits (welfare) to single mothers
pursuing post-secondaty upgrading.
5) Finally, it is imperative that
workfare positions neither
eliminate jobs currently in the
system, nor prevent the creation of
new positions for which hiring
should take place.
If you have concerns about the
workfare plans for our HCBE
schools, call MPP Helen Johns at
1-800-668-9320 or fax at 1-519-
235-4922.
Willi Laurie
HWTA President.
THE EDITOR,
The Canada Employment Centre
for Students held a barbecue on
Thursday, June 27 in front of the
Employment Centre in downtown
Listowel to celebrate Hire-a-
Student Week across Ontario.
Along with hot dogs and pop, the
Continued on page 5
PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 1996
C The North Huron
itizen
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Cut waste, not the system
According to a report commissioned by the Metropolitan Toronto
District Health Council, only one per cent of cases treated in the
emergency wards of the city's hospitals arc true emergencies. Some of
the rest are people who need
help but 78 per cent of visits
could be diverted elsewhere.
Because the cost of a visit to an
emergency ward is far higher
than a visit to a doctor, it's
obvious that there could be huge savings if unnecessary cases could be
weeded out of the emergency wards.
Too many people are using emergency wards for things that could be
looked after by visiting their family doctors. This is particularly
wasteful in a city like Toronto because there are more doctors per
thousand population there than anywhere else in the province.
In rural areas like Huron County, the emergency ward is both a
solution to a problem, and the root cause of the same problem. There
are so few doctors in some communities that for newcomers, it may be
impossible to find a doctor still inking new patients. In such cases, one
can hardly blame people for using the emergency ward of their local
hospital in place of a family doctor.
However, unlike city hospitals which have full-time emergency
room doctors, rural hospitals depend on family doctors working on an
on-call basis, to staff emergency rooms. This extra burden on doctors,
on top of their regular practice, is part of the reason it's so hard to attract
doctors to rural areas. A family doctor in a large city can count on
having evenings and weekends to rest. In rural areas, the doctors must
be on call their share of nights and weekends. Added to the level of
stress already present in their job, it makes burn-out a serious problem
for rural doctors.
The emergency ward issue is one of the first problems that needs to
be solved in the medical system before massive cuts are made
elsewhere. Toronto hospitals have turned to a system in which nurses
are able to treat minor problems and to order X-rays and some tests so
that doctors will have the information they need to diagnose a patient's
problems, rather than have people wait for long periods before being
seen. Perhaps giving nurses more authority in rural hospitals would
save some of the burden on family physicians.
In Toronto, it has been recommended that the present 21 emergency
rooms be reduced to 12 or 13. Much as we hate to think of some local
hospitals not providing emergency room service, perhaps we'll have to
live with that locally. Though it's comforting to have an emergency
room in each of Huron County's five towns, it means that every doctor
must bear the added burden of emergency room service. We may have
to make a choice of what we want: more doctors or more emergency
rooms. There are tough choices to be made if we're to solve the best of
out Ontario health care system. — KR
So many ways to tell the story
Is it possible to have a united Canada when different history is
taught in different parts of the country, if it is taught at all?
A documentary produced by CBC television on Canada Day showed
the dangers of provincial autonomy in the education field. The program
showed how the history taught in Quebec school and the history taught
in the rest of the country have helped build the wall of
misunderstanding that now threatens to shatter the country. Whereas
students elsewhere are taught that Confederation was a union between
four provinces, in Quebec students are taught it was a union between
two founding peoples, French and English. Thus for Quebecers the idea
of sovereignty association makes perfect sense while Canadians
elsewhere think Quebec should be a province like all the others.
Similarly the execution of Louis Rid after the 1885 rebellion in
Saskatchewan is seen as either the hanging of a traitor or an unfortunate
mistake outside Quebec. In Quebec it is seen as historical proof of the
betrayal of a vision that French Canadians could be at home throughout
Canada, leading to the fortress mentality that Quebec must be the
homeland for the French language in Canada.
Each of the 10 provinces governs its own education system and can
tell the story of the country its own way. As the federal government
turns over more powers to the provinces, how many other cases of
provincial diversity causing divisiveness will we encounter? — KR
E ditorial