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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18th at 7:30 pm .11%.11.111114111111 BloGuard Middegaal POOLS and SPORTS 519-527-0104 234 Main St. N. Seaforth Thank You The Walton Hall Board wishes to thank everyone who attended the concert on Friday night. Our deepest thanks to Brian, Jennifer, Chad and Judy of "Beyond Bliss" for their wonderful a cappella vocal talents and exciting song renditions. Thank you to all those who supported our auction by donating items or buying them, and our amazing local auctioneer, Jim Campbell, for his time and talent. Also thanks to our local ladies for donating the lovely lunch enjoyed after the concert. It is the wonderful spirit of Walton that will keep our Community Hall going strong. Thanks to everyone and Happy Eastei. Walton Community Hall Board PAGE 6. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2001. County figures show big savings for ambulance switch go through. Clinton-Seaforth ambulance station. Klopp also was critical of a deci- Steffier charged that she had asked sion to hold meetings of paramedics specifically on Nov. 29 if there were on a weekend to inform them of plans to pave the lane and been minor deficiencies found by Ministry assured there wasn't. of Health officials •cluring an audit of The next day she was talking to an the system. People who needed a day official of a local paving company off had to be at the meeting, he said, and been told that County Engineer Lin Steffler of Huron East won- Sandra Lawson had just visited him dered about contents of that audit. to question if the asphalt plant would Lynn Murray, county clerk admin- be open long enough to pave the lane. istrator said the written report would The weather changed and no paving be prepared by different staff than was done. those who did the research and that it Klopp wondered if money had been might take up to six months to approved for the paving since it was- receive. The ministry officials present n't in the original contract with the had verbally said the system was gen- landlord for the site. erally running well except for a few Hambides said paramedics small issues, she said. expressed concern over the need for Steffler asked that any correspon- paving the lane during a recent meet- dence from the ministry on the sub- ing with paramedics at the site. The ject be given to the committee. muddy lane means they are tracking Both Steffler and Klopp went on dirt into their vehicles and into the the attack about plans to pave the station, he said. He had assured them driveway to the temporary site for the that the county intends to move ahead New hospital could bring doctors County staff presented figures at Thursday's Huron County council session that showed administrative costs for the new ambulance service are 54 per cent of the costs of the Perth ambulance service and 29 per cent of Lambton's, but it failed to silence critics. Paul Klopp from Bluewater pointed out that Huron County has no manag- er for its service while other counties have both a director and operations manager. Huron also has no supervi- sors while Perth has supervisors who are also paramedics and Lambton has full-time supervisors. Klopp gave notice he will be moving a motion to hire a supervisor for the system. Klopp also attacked the cost of con- sultant Jon Hambides of Promax, who has guided the county through the downloading of the ambulance serv- ice from the province. Huron County was the only one of the surrounding municipalities that went through hir- ing reviews of the existing para- medics, he said. It meant that several senior paramedics were not offered jobs with the county. Klopp repeated his call for proof of motions made by the previous county council to retain Promax on an ongo- ing basis. But Central Huron's Carol Mitchell, who was warden last year when the new service was set up, said the ambulance issue is very complex. She pointed out a report on the first three months operation will be sub- mitted by Hambides in June. "It's almost June. Let's see what the report looks like. Then when you have the report in your hands, you can make recommendations," she said. Deb Shewfelt of Goderich expressed frustration with the deci- sion of the agriculture, public works and seniors committee not to answer a letter from the wife of one of the paramedics who was not hired. Shewfelt said he saw nothing in the HU plans Since the province has decided not to tackle the dangers of the West Nile virus, the Huron County health unit will take a lead role, Sheryl Feagan, acting director told county council, April 5.* Dr. Beth Henning, the county's acting medical officer of health, has been a leading advocate of a program to reduce the danger of the disease to humans through reducing the popu- lation of mosquifoes which infect humans with a disease that causes mild illness among the young and healthy but may cause encephalitis in the elderly and infirm, sometimes leading to death. Feagan says the health unit will move fast with its education program because mosquito larvae start to emerge as adults by May 15-30. The education program urges peo- ple to take a two-pronged approach of reducing potential breeding sites for mosquitoes and taking personal protectiVe measures to keep from being bitten. To reduce the potential for mosqui- toes to breed, the health unit recom- mends disposing of places where stale water can accumulate by get- ting rid of unwanted containers, tin cans and old tires. Rain barrels and flower pots should be drained. If you use a tire for a children's swing, drill holes in the bottom SQ it can drain. Turn over wheel. barrows, canoes, plastic wading pools, etc. so they can't hold water. Make sure your rain gutters and eavestroughs are unclogged. Change the water in bird baths and remove dead leaves. Aerate orna- mental ponds and stock them with mosquito-eating fish. Cut grass and trims shrubs and bushes where mosquitoes can hide letter to warrant the committee's cav- alier attitude. "It smacks of discrimi- nation," he said speaking of the deci- sion not to hire five paramedics who had up to 30 years experience. "For us to sit here and let this get swept under the rug is wrong." But Huron East's Bernie MacLellan said the committee had gone over every point in the letter before decid- ing not to reply. "This is a personnel issue with someone who is not per-_ sonnet (anymore)," he said. The unhired paramedics had been offered a meeting with the committee, said Ben Van Diepenbeek, chair of the committee, but had chosen not to take advantage of that offer. Even Klopp, a member of the com- mittee, supported the decision not to reply. The writer put "everything but the kitchen sink" in the letter, he said, making it hard for the committee to reply, Still, he remained critical of the hiring process that paramedics had to A new 90-bed hospital serving Clinton, Goderich and central Huron could offer the kind of expanded services that would help solve prob- lems with recruiting doctors and nurs- es. That was the optimistic news deliv- ered by Janice Cosgrove, vice-presi- dent and on-site co-ordinator for the three western hospitals of the Huron- Perth Hospital Alliance to county councillors at their April 5 meeting. A larger hospital could offer the kind of advanced technology that would help attract doctors and other medical professionals, Cosgrove said. "Technology is very expensive," she said. "We can't (provide) it in every small hospital. (A bigger hospital) might allow us to implement technol- ogy that people are having to drive for now. It would provide the critical during the day. On a broader scale it recommends flushing storm drains and catch basins, draining ditches, swamps and marshlands and filling in depressions where water can collect. On a personal protection level, the health unit recommends avoiding the outdoors between dusk and dawn, wearing long-sleeved clothing and using mosquito repe.11ents with D EET. with paving the lane as quickly as possible. But even supporters were dubious about spending more money on the temporary site. Neil Rintoul from Ashfield,-Colborne-Wawanosh said he'd visited the site and was con- cerned about the congestion because of vehicles from the landlord's own building. "I say we should get the heck out of there as fast as we can and get the new station in place," he said. Mitchell too, agreed. "The sooner we can get the new site built the bet- ter. It's time to move on," she said. Rob Morley of South Huron asked for assurance "there will be no asphalt put on the ground until council approves." Murray gave that assur- ance. LAWN QUESTIONS? Call... WednIZ 524-2424 mass." As well as the well-known problem of attracting doctors to rural areas, there's also a fast-approaching short- age of nurses as the baby boom gen- eration ages, Cosgrove said. "A new facility will go a long way toward assisting in recruitment." Deb Shewfelt of Goderich asked Gary Davidson, director of planning and development, what protection the hospital, if it was built in a rural area between Clinton and Goderich, could have from intensive livestock opera- tions being situated close by. Davidson said the question was a little premature but there is already a 2,000-foot buffer around institutional sites in rural areas and if that wasn't adequate, a zoning change could be considered. "The real issue would be if there were existing livestock operations near the site," he said. Bill Dowson of Bluewater suggest- ed that perhaps the construction of a new ambulance station in Goderich should be delayed until the location of the new hospital is announced to see if it would be more cost efficient to build the station at the hospital. "I think the committee needs to take a long look at it before we build a new site." But John Doherty of Goderich said the current site is not safe and all the underground plumbing needs to be replaced. "It's going to be five or six or seven years before the hospital is built," he said. Rob Morley, from South Huron pointed out temporary sites are being used in other locations and perhaps that should be considered in Goderich until the hospital's location is chosen. West Nile education prop.