Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-02-02, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2000. PAGE 5. Here’s to your health, har, har! Hey folks, we hit the big time. Canada, I mean. Yep, got ourselves a four-column, nearly full-page spread on Page Three of the Sunday New York Times. Why, the editors even added a little Map of Canada insert, so that readers of the paper would have a good idea of where Canada is. And what got us the attention of the most influential newspaper in the English-speaking world? Was it a story about our prodigies - Gretzky? Dion? McCluhan? Nope. Was it a story about Vancouver being the only North American city to be voted best burg in the world? Nope. It was a story about our health care system. In case you haven’t run afoul of it lately, you need to know that Canada’s health care system is a joke. Even the readers of the New York Times know that now. Actually, I jest. Everybody knows Canada’s health care system is pathetic, an international laughing stock. Everybody, save it seems, a few elected officials in Ottawa. How did this happen? It wasn’t so long ago that our universal free health care system was the envy of the world. Hell, Americans came up here to see how it worked and how they could copy it. But then the government bean counters moved in, carrying fire axes. Hospital beds were, as they like to say,' downsized. New medical equipment was put on hold, and as many employees as they could slash were put on ice. Care to hear the numbers? In the last few years, 4,800 doctors and nurses were bought Learning a language Some weeks ago my wife Sue wrote of her driving experiences in southern France. Today she tells of her thoughts in getting ready to go there by boning up on her high school French and her use of it once she got there. I feel sorry for young people today who have to get any more than one high school credit in French to get their high school diploma. “Too boring! Too hard! Not important! I’ll never use it!” I’ve heard it all and I am not impressed. I’m grateful that I was a student at a time when everyone had to study a second language all through high school. I studied French for seven years and, sorry, gang, I actually liked it and it was my highest mark in my graduating year. A second bonus for me came when my husband, Ray, (who speaks eight languages) decided we should bring up a son to be bilingual. From the time that baby was bom until today (37 years later), Ray has spoke French with him. The latter, when he was a baby, thought that you spoke one way (English) to mothers and another way (French) to fathers. So I have been hearing French and understanding it for a long time. A bonus! When 1 decided to go to France this past fall with a friend from British Columbia she told me she would drive the Car if I would do the talking. I agreed, as I sure didn’t want to drive out, given early retirement. Nearly 5,000 medical pros - and folks that’s only in the province of Quebec. Same story all over the country. In Ontario, 44 hospitals closed. In Montreal, the waiting lists for chemotherapy treatments for breast and prostate cancer victims now stand at four months, if you’re lucky. In British Columbia nobody knows exactly how long the wait list - but if you join the queue you will find 670 people ahead of you. Are Canadian medical professionals discouraged? Sure are - the ones that are left anyway. In the last few years more than one thousand Canadian doctors and six thousand overworked nurses said the hell with it, packed their bags and went south. Hard to guess how long the remaining medical staff can last. To say that they’re overworked is a cruel understatement. Two weeks ago, 23 of Toronto’s 25 hospitals turned ambulances away. Hospitals turning away ambulances. Even a mordant satirist like Joseph Heller would never have come up with that. And how has this played out for the American medical system, which Canadians used to tut-tut and dismiss condescendingly? Like gold-plated bedpans dropping from the sky. In Canada, our hospital corridors are clogged with patients there’s no room for. In the States, they’re reaping the benefits of a medical system in freefall. A couple of years ago, the hospital in Plattsburg, New York was about to close its cancer unit. Not enough customers. Then Montrealers, fed up with the constipated dog’s breakfast that is our health care system, began crossing the border, streaming south, wallets in hand. The hospital in Plattsburg has just invested a half a million dollars in new a car in France. This past spring I took a night .course in French for travellers. Ray and I went though the material I was given and modified and added to it. As the time came close for my departure, we sat in the solarium and practised French. Well, I did the practicing. When I boarded the Air France jet in Toronto, 1 was determined to speak only French to French people, and I did just that. I was nervous at first but was greatly encouraged to find that people could actually understand me. In Province, I spoke French at the markets and other stores, in restaurants, to the landlord and his wife, to the tourist bureau people ... everywhere. I found the French people to be patient, helpful, kind, understanding and appreciative of my efforts to use their language. I made mistakes; sometimes the person to whom I was talking would gently say it the right way. I made mistakes that were funny. One day I was telling my landlord about a bullfight, and told him that we had sat in “siecles 558 and 559”. I knew right away that it wasn’t correct but was stymied for the right word. I had actually said “centuries 558 and 559”! The landlord smiled and said that we’d sat in, “Sieges 558 and 559”. I found that some tourists did make the effort to speak French. Germans and British equipment to handle the snowbirds. I have only one question for the Chretiens and the Martins, the Ralph Kleins and the Mike Harrises: when you started cashiering doctors and nurses, mothballing hospitals, getting rid of beds, cutting the number of spaces for students in our medical schools - just what the hell did you think would happen? Hard to guess whether the politicians thought much about it at all. Last month, an apologist for our National Health Fiasco told reporters quote: “the social equity of our health system reflects our Canadian values.” Know who said that? Allan Rock, Canada’s federal health minister. Anatole France wrote: “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.” Not much of a silver lining on this commentary. Maybe we can take a little comfort from the ingenuity some of our fellow citizens have shown in making what’s left of our health care system work. One beleaguered patient in Ontario recently grew weary of waiting month upon month for the magnetic resonance imaging tests he needed. So he checked around, found out that veterinarians are exempt from the burial shroud that Canada’s health safety net has become. Veterinarians can operate privately. For cash. Outside the system. Which is how our patient finally got the magnetic imaging test he needed. He reserved a session for himself...at a private animal hospital. The name he wrote on the hospital admission form? Fido. You know what folks? We paid for this joke of a health system you and I. With our taxes. In good faith. And we wuz robbed. did; Americans did not ... they just spoke English loudly in stores and expected to be understood. One day, when I was in a little store in Les Baux (former chateau of the Grimaldi family, the ancestors of the current Prince Ranier of Monaco), I found myself among some American women who were on a bus tour and had 45 minutes to spend at Les Baux. Instead of visiting the fabulous site, they spent all the time shopping and gave the French saleslady a hard time (in English). When I spoke French to the clerk, she was so relieved, it was almost funny. The American ladies looked at me as if I was a freak; they had heard me speak English to my friend. I, however, felt happy to be able to communicate and sympathize with the French clerk. There are some little polite expressions that I found to be important in Provence. One is to say a cheerful “Bonjour” upon catching the eye of the salesperson in a store, or when approaching anyone you wish to talk to or ask a question of. A sincere “Merci” for help given is necessary, and a smiling “Au revoir” on your departure is a must. Observing these niceties and having them returned in kind makes one feel good and is well worth the effort. Struggling for words, making mistakes and having successes in another language were all part of a good experience in France. I am lucky to have had the experience! The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Untapped, talent Is there a talent in me untapped? Might I have been the next Picasso, the next Clapton, the next Katherine Hepburn? I recently read something on Meryl Streep and her amazing ability to get into the skin of a character she’s portraying. One producer attributes it to her fearlessness, the reality that there is nothing the actor will not try in order to get the best from herself. Joseph Papp, a New York theatre producer who gave Streep her first professional role said, “There are only a few people around here who are pure actors. She takes tremendous risks both physical and emotion.” Another suggests kismet has more to do with it. According to Cher, Streep is “an acting machine in the same sense that a shark is a killing machine. That’s what she was born to be.” Is her talent a result of wanting something and working for it? Or is it a gift she was destined to use? I have often wondered if those blessed folk of beyond average ability discovered their talent by happenstance or if it was as inevitable as lies from a politician’s lips. If Clapton’s grandmother hadn’t bought him a guitar, would he eventually have found his way to one? Was Picasso compelled to paint or was it just dumb luck that he decided to give it a try? Did people see Nolan Ryan’s right arm was special the moment he picked up a baseball? If they are born to it then we must also assume there are those without gifts. On the other hand, if it’s simply a miraculous coincidence that affords them the opportunity of tapping that unknown talent, and working until it surpasses all others, it is therefore possible some of us have not realized our potential. One of my favourite self-deprecating remarks is that if I excel at anything it’s at being average. There are things I know I do as well as most, but not better than any. My talents might be noticeable to those who don’t share them, but that notwithstanding they are not particularly noteworthy. To my mind I’m pretty much middle of the road on everything from motherhood to musical ability. All this said, there are occasions when I have mused that perhaps some missed opportunity kept a gift unrevealed. For instance there was my penchant as a child for overdramatising things. The early signs of a budding Oscar winner? The thing is that a life on stage or screen was a romantic notion in those days, nothing that would be taken particularly seriously. Nor did it seem was there the imagination or means to expose kids to diverse interests. Fortunately, that is not so today. While it may be argued that we have deprived them of some things, this generation of young people has been blessed with a variety of experiences. Kids skate, they dance, they sing, they play piano, guitar, drums. They study theatre, photography, music, media. Perhaps some people are the best because they work hard. Others may be born to do what they do. But a wealth of opportunity makes it easier to discover our gifts and share them with others.