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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1998-07-08, Page 4; Times -Advocate, July 8, 1998 Publisher & Editor: Jim Beckett Business Manager: Don Smith . Production Manager: Deb Lord • Advertising • Barb Consist, Chad Eedy News: Kate Monk, Craig Bradford, - Katherine Harding, Scott Nixon, Ross Haugh Production" Alma Battantyne, Mary McMurray, Barb Robertson Brenda Hern, Joyce Weber, Laurel Miner jianvortatiprt: AtHodgert Front Office & Accountirig;.Sue Rollings, Carol Windsor Ruthanne Negrijn, Anita McDonald, Cassie Dalrymple. Ruth Slaght, The Exeter Times -Advocate is a member of a family of community newspapers providing news, advertising and information leadership. • EDITOR I.>>1, Solution must be found .u far this community has been lucky. :. South Huron •Hospital has been able ; • to shut down its emergency department - without facing any serious repercus- sions, however, there is no guarantee the on again off again emergenck situa- tion can continue indefinitely without : becoming part of a tragedy. Some day someone could have a heart - attack in Zurich'or Hensall, or almost any. place in the community and the -. victim will he quickly whisked into Ex- eter, which happens to be -the nearest emergency centre.. - - The driver pulls into emergency, runs to the door for help only.to be faced • witha notice advising that help be- - sought elsewhere. "We're closed in Ex- eter., ' •. This situation is simplistic: :but sud= denly it could -become all too real. - The very definition of.emergency ser vice is reassuring to people: We know it's there and we know we can count on .it. -...always. -To -offer a service,that - : _could be closed on short notice for sev- eral days a month is.a weird way -of playing Russian roulette with our lives._ _We ives.- We -understand local doctors do not want the responsibility of always "be- ing there", particularly as they have been paying their dues for many years. We also know local doctors can put forth a better -effort than covering three out of 93 ER shifts -as originally report- ed last week. This was clearly demon- strated a few days after the closings for July were announced by the hospital when-ihree local and two out of town- doctors own-doctors stepped up and covered addi- tional shifts. But what about the next time? The situation at South Huron Hospital seems to go much deeper than the partic- ipants are' explaining to the -general pub- tic: Everybody knows we need more doctors to service our -aging and growing _communities. We can only. hype every possible effort is being made to attract qualified people as soon as Possible. .• What everybody does not know is why •is this problem cropping up in Exeter so suddenly and acutely: The fact a Media- tor will be brought in demonstrates just- how far the situation has deteriorated. One old medical saying rings true.to- day. "An ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure." Preventing this hovpita) from function- ing at a lower level than -citizens in our community deserve is a task for our pro- vincial and municipal politicians along with the administration and most impor- tantly our doctors. If a solution cannot be found soon, perhaps it is time to ask for help from one of the larger hospitals in the area. There could be advantages in scheduling from a centre with a. larger pool -of doc- tors. Letting more young doctors see what it is like -to work. in Exetercould be • an opportunity to showcase our cbmmu- nity, and,who knows, perhaps one or two could be convinced that having a - practice in the area would.be an excel- lent career trove?, Publications Mail Registration Number 07511 . SUO$CI IPTIQN RATES; One year rate for Canada subscribers - S35.00 + GST Two year rate for Canada subscribers - $83.00 + OST QjHJR RATES Outside Canada - S102.00 8°4 1 ttY-.t.�c `'l. ,t Published Each Wednesday Morning at 424 Main St., Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S6 by J.W. Eedy Publications ltd. Telephone 1.5192351331 • Fax: 519-235-0766 emall:taeeedy.com G.S.T. 18105210835 Speak Out! LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Times Advocate continues to welcome, letters to the editoras a forum for open discussion of local issues, concerns, complaints and. kudos. WE ASK THAT YOU KEEP YOUR LETTERS TO A MAXIMUM OF 300 WORDS. The Times Advocate reserves the right •to edit letters for brevity. Please send your letters to P.O. Box 850, - Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S6. Sign your letter with both name and address. A View from Queen's Park By EricDowd TORONTO - Premier Mike Harris has passed up a chance to ride in the Gay Pride Parade and clearly he is not even headed in the same direc- tion. The Progressive Conservative premier was asked if he would be in the procession after the mayor of the newly amalgamated Toronto and fellow Tory, Mel Lastman, announced he would join it because it was 'the right thing to do.' The mayor, who once ran for the legislature, explained he represents all groups in his com- munity and while he may not agree with them, he wants to show their rights should be respect- ed. Hams excused himself showing some re- straint by saying he . normally is back home with his family in North Bay this time. of year and does not ride in parades anyway. But Har- ris would have been out of place because he was an unyielding opponent of gay rights be- Aelwre e90U% 'musings By Craig Bradford • Compromise - needed to save school , sports - it should never happen. That's Jny opinion on thc swirl- ing controversy on teachers shelv- ing high school sports -Atte: to the province's new teaching require-. rttents that requires them to be in the classroom seven nut of eight blocks per year. - - Many teachers would still coach if they wcre.•in thc classroom the - ,cntire school day an'd had no time to prep or mark papers during the day, They would give of their free time to give that extra l0-20 hours • a week during the season towards their players on- top -of the 'other several hours a week spent on prep, curriculum development and paper sharking. Coaching is their passion, it's what, besides their families, makcs them tick. For many teachers, coaching is a big part or the most important part of why they went to teachers'. col- . lege- in the first place: So why would they lay it all on the line? Why- draw tate line in the sand and tell the province tri not go there? - Of course, the stand off now, is • political. Some teachers know they' could - still coach under the seven blocks per year system but won't if their fellow teachers don't. to -show solidarity...and to save face. More partnerships be- tween the public and pri- vate sectors could -go a long way to not only pre- serving school sports, it • could better them. All teachers say academics won't be affected by whatever action they choose IQ show their displeasure with the province. But their own statistics, courtesy•the.Ontario Fed- eration of -School Athletic Associa- tions (OFSAA), beg to differ. ".Athletes -involved in school sport. do:better Mille classroom: are more - involved and stay involved in: the community after graduation," states OFSAA'sJune 23press release. _ Here's another OFSAA. stat: "Fe- male student athletes are 92 per cent less likely to get involved with drugs, 80 per cent Tess likely to get Pregnant and three time more like- ly than non -athletic peers to gradu- ate.from high schoot." But who is really holding school sports hostage? ' The provincial . Torics - seem to have a philosophy when it comes to. dealing with' their public sector workers. i first noticed this system- atic way of achieving their goals with the- first showdown with Onta- rio's doctors over OHiP overbill- ing. : I call it 'the stick and 'carrot theory'.. . Here's how it works: the province Continued on page 5 fore beingclected premier in 1995 and has since not shown any inclination to moderate his oppo- sition. Hams, although it was not noted enough at the time, got started on his swift climb to power in 1994 by attacking a. joint attempt by a New Democrat government and Liberal opposi- tion to extend more rights to gays. The NDP and Liberals both said they ap- proved giving gays more rights and in a byelec- tion Harris, then the little-known leader of the third party, claimed, while .his first priority was creating jobs, the other two parties' first priority was giving homosexual couples the -same rights as heterosexuals. This was an exaggeration, be- cause both the NDF and Liberals had other poli- cies, like them or not, that occupied much more of their time, but it caught on and a huge Liberal lead in polls vanished and the Tories won. The result scared the NDP and Liberals, but the former pushed on with legislation to give gay couples the same rights to each others' em - Gay -ployment benefits, and to adopt children, as het- erosexual couples, "which was more than the Liberals had offered to support anyway. In what was supposed to be a freevote almost all Liber- als and all Tories opposed it and it was defeat- ed.. Furious gays heaped all the blame unfairly on Liberal leader Lyn McLeod and hounded her at public appearances up to the election for 'be- traying' them. This obscured Harris's crucial role in raisin g a sensitive issue in a way that, made it still :Yore re difficult to debate reasonably and leading his party to oppose and vote against it en bloc. Harris while premier has not talked much about gay rights and gays have virtually given up pressing him. - Harris tossed them a bone by appointing the openly gay former Tory minister Keith Norton as head of the Ontario Human Rights Commis- sion, but otherwise maintained his opposition to gay rights. As examples, gays appeared to make a bteakthrough when the Ontario Court of Ap- peal ruled one partner in a homosexual relation- ship that breaks down can claim financial sup- port from the other, as in a heterosexual rela• - tionship.. . Harris's government went to court to argue, against this, claiming homosexual couples do. not need the same protection as women in tradi- tional radi-tional marriages who give up their chance of paid work to raise children, and has taken this argument as far as the Supreme Court of Cana- • da. The federal government said in June it will permit partners of its -gay civil servants to claim survivors' pension benefits and treat them as heterosexual couples rather than see the issue dragged further through courts, but Hams has said merely he will wait to see what the judges say. - An exasperated New Democrat MPP has ac- cused Hams of wasting taxpayers' money try- ing to deny gays their rights and clearly he will not extend new rights to gays unless he is forced to.