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ER closures usually are not ‘regular,’ minister

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Re: Ontario ER closures not unprecedented, well being minister says, Aug. 8.

What a reduction listening to from provincial Well being Minister Sylvia Jones that ER closures usually are not unprecedented. We’ve failed Ontarians previously so what’s the massive deal if we’re doing it once more? Very comforting.

The motto within the Ontario Well being Ministry should be “Try for mediocrity.” With a view to serve you higher, we’ve closed this ER; please drive 80 kms to the following nearest overcrowded ER as it could be open. Better of luck.

True story: a number of years in the past, the discover on the door of our native financial institution department mentioned that actual factor: “With a view to serve you higher, we’ve
closed this department.” It should be spreading!

Garry Logue, Ottawa

What universe is the well being minister dwelling in?

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Gee, I didn’t suppose the nurses in Ontario had been all on trip. I believed they had been so overworked and underpaid that no one needs to be a nurse anymore. I’m so glad the minister has informed us the reality as she sees it from the planet she lives on distant.

Jean Currie, Ottawa

Don’t trash the single-payer system

Well being Minister Sylvia Jones seems on monitor to proceed underfunding nursing and different types of well being care and selling non-public care. First rate well being care can by no means be low-cost. Repair the present single-payer system; don’t trash it.

David Palframan, M.D., Ottawa

Paramedic guidelines are simply silly

The most important downside with the health-care system is that it’s run by the federal government, which is extra involved about guidelines and laws than about environment friendly and efficient service.

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Take, for instance, the difficulty of getting zero ambulances accessible. That is due to a silly rule requiring paramedics (and their ambulances) to sit down idle till a hospital employee takes over a affected person. In a single case I used to be ready in hospital with my spouse and there have been 10 paramedics within the hallway with 5 sufferers. They had been there for greater than two hours. As soon as the hospital takes over, one or two nurses take care of these 5 sufferers.

Why not have a pair of paramedics take care of these sufferers till they’re handed over? I hope that somebody who cares reads this.

Greg Cameron, Ottawa

What is going to it take to vary views on nursing?

I don’t consider lots of the registered nurses from the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s are nonetheless practising. So, few will keep in mind when pay fairness was the massive concern.

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We nurses felt we must always have pay parity with law enforcement officials. No such luck. Phrase was, we had been in comparison with pastry cooks. Sadly, nursing remains to be female-dominated and I don’t suppose it’s any extra valued right this moment than within the Nineties.

I don’t know what it should take to get nurses the popularity on all ranges — pay, profit, fairness and respect — they deserve. Maybe if the entire well being system will get nearer to whole collapse, views will change amongst these in cost.

Mary Sue Boyle (proud graduate of Toronto Common Hospital 1968), Kemptville

Why persons are leaving nursing careers

The Citizen has carried quite a few examples of the challenges going through nurses. I heard an instance that units out starkly the selection one nurse made. She left her career to change into a painter with a drywall and portray firm. She is completely happy together with her determination. The hours are common, the pay is roughly what she had been incomes and when she finishes her work day, it doesn’t keep together with her.

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Gerry Van Kessel, Gatineau

Fill health-care gaps with ‘dreamers’

Whereas Canada’s health-care spending is consistent with different democracies, our outcomes usually are not. Solely the People make us look good.

We spend far more than most on administration, however we penny-pinch with nurses, beds and tools. Wait instances are horrible. ER rooms are shut down. Ambulances line up, unable to drop off sufferers. Nurses are leaving in droves. 1000’s of jobs stay vacant. All of the provinces ever do is demand more cash from the federal authorities. However cash alone won’t convey our nurses again. In the long term, the well being system wants a complete overhaul.

Finally, we’d like a real nationwide public health-care system, identical to most different democracies. They’re extra environment friendly, efficient and accountable. In fact, that will take years. Within the quick time period, we urgently want extra medical doctors and nurses.

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Need a fast answer? Within the U.S., some 280,000 health-care staff are so-called “dreamers” — undocumented immigrants. All “dreamers” by definition, have lived within the U.S. for a few years with unblemished data. They’re dropping hope. Canada might provide them what they dream about: a job, respect and quick citizenship.

Patrick Esmonde-White, Ottawa

A bit context on these trainer comparisons

Re: Letter, Let’s examine lecturers, nurses, Aug. 8.

I heartily concur with the author’s feedback concerning the working situations for nurses in Ontario. Enchancment is important, significantly in wages. I want to make clear and add some actuality, nonetheless, to her feedback concerning the instructing career.

She acknowledged that lecturers have three paid skilled days, as if this had been some sort of vacation. Not so. Skilled days are working days, they usually signify a really small a part of the skilled growth that lecturers pursue frequently, on their very own dime.

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Sure, the mandated working day for lecturers is 5 hours, however that’s 5 hours in entrance of a category, working with teams and people, usually with very excessive numbers of scholars. Readers ought to have some understanding of the numerous hours that go into making ready for the supply of packages to handle the educational wants of  various college students. This requires hard-earned abilities and information, and dealing nights and weekends to satisfy the wants of scholars in that five-hour class window. As for accountability, efficiency critiques are completed yearly.

The nursing career in Ontario has been profoundly undervalued and this should be addressed. However please have a extra correct understanding of the workload lecturers carry earlier than making  comparisons.

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Jan Secord, Ottawa

Blood company must rethink this coverage

Re: Donors, recipients upset after Canadian Blood Companies lifts masks mandates, Aug. 11.

I noticed one in every of my health-care suppliers this previous week. Each of us had been sporting a masks throughout remedy. I requested her why she continues to take action and the reply was: “We’re doing a superb job of ignoring that COVID remains to be on the market, so I’ll proceed to put on a masks.”

If Canadian Blood Companies needs to handle the present drop in donations, maybe it ought to take into account these phrases and the way some donors see the state of affairs proper now.

Ron Grossman, Blackburn

The federal public service will not be particular

Re: Public service unions say federal authorities’s steering on hybrid work flawed, July 29.

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I’m curious as to why members of the general public service really feel they’re completely different from the non-public sector, and should be dealt with with excessive care. The remainder of us have been again to the workplace, working, for months now. Some, by no means left work in any respect in the course of the pandemic.

With a number of information reviews about delays in supply of federal authorities providers, it confuses me after I learn feedback from public servants to the impact that: “I work so a lot better at dwelling, I get a lot extra completed.” If that had been actually the case, why aren’t our authorities providers working 100 per cent higher than in 2019? The paperwork was by no means a well-oiled machine, however it’s working a minimum of 100 per cent worse than in 2019.

What’s lacking with the distant mannequin is collaboration, innovation and effectivity. A day or two within the workplace, with flexibility at both finish of the week, supplies a large alternative to collaborate, innovate and alter the established order. Sitting in your basement by your self, tapping away and “doing all your job” doesn’t make for a greater end result.

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Please, simply get again to work, you aren’t particular.

Krista McCredie, Ottawa

Everybody ought to have entry to memorial

Re: Ottawa’s Nationwide Battle Memorial will not be a backdrop on your protest, Aug. 5.

Each particular person ought to have the best to go to the location of the Battle Memorial, even when it means there will probably be extra urinators, dancers, desecrators, flag drapers and self-titled freedom fighters. These now we have enshrined and promised to recollect didn’t sacrifice for simply a few of us however slightly for all of us.

I’d assist further surveillance, each bodily and digital, and stiffer penalties for legal acts. I’d additionally counsel prohibiting group political protests on the website. It’s a sacred place, not Speaker’s Nook. I’m nonetheless satisfied that each particular person should have the best to go to the Battle Memorial, contact the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, ponder the sacrifices made, educate our kids and grandchildren, give thanks for the Canada now we have inherited, and even perhaps pray and to weep.

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Something much less dishonours those that gave a lot.

Cmdr.(Retd) John W. McDermott, CD, RCN, Carlsbad Springs

Sure, some issues are certainly sacred

Sustain the nice work, Brigitte Pellerin. You possibly can not have mentioned it any higher. Fantastic and beautiful. Hearts do stay on, particularly once we allow them to.

Pat Gates, Ottawa & Westport

Why user-pay would work for transit

Re: Fare-free transit will assist clear up Ottawa’s woes, Aug. 9.

Sure, we should cut back car-based commuting. This will probably be helped by transit that’s dependable, snug, clear, handy and reasonably priced. Nonetheless, the present fare construction of OC Transpo presents a heavy subsidy to those that stay within the far suburbs. I stay in Westboro, and pay the identical fare to journey six km to the Rideau Centre as does somebody travelling 23 km from the Kanata Centrum, 4 instances as far.

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If we wish to discourage city sprawl and encourage larger inhabitants density in 15-minute neighbourhoods, we should make it financially preferable to stay near metropolis centres. Most of the world’s giant cities have fare zones. The additional you journey the extra you pay.

Sure, there are some individuals who want monetary assist to journey to work or faculty. The know-how is already there to assist completely different fare buildings. Certainly there is usually a fare class primarily based on some proof or attestation of economic want. That is higher than offering free transit to prosperous information staff and executives dwelling in giant properties on former agriculture land.

Reasonably priced transit means being extra reasonably priced than the choice: the non-public automobile. Once more, user-pay ought to prevail. The extra highway one makes use of, the extra one ought to pay. Somewhat than all taxpayers funding roads no matter how a lot or how little they use them, drivers ought to pay by the space travelled. That is achieved by tolls.

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So, some good factors by writers Nick Grover and Donald Swartz, however I disagree with their proposal.

David Welch, Westboro

The case free of charge transit is sound

Thanks, Nick Grover and Donald Swartz, for clearly articulating why free public transit is sound public coverage. Site visitors congestion, limitless highway restore and road-widening, air and noise air pollution are all merchandise of our reliance on non-public automobiles.

We’re in a local weather disaster which should be managed instantly with revolutionary motion. Now’s the time to make use of the general public purse to enhance our high quality of life in Ottawa.

Julie Newlands, Ottawa

Right here’s easy methods to fund true free transit

The authors writing on fare-free transit uncared for to say that Ottawa taxpayers at the moment contribute 45 per cent to the precise price of OC Transpo fares via a transit levy on their property taxes. In addition they pay for the OC Transpo annual deficit and the LRT long-term debt. In consequence, Ottawa transit riders are getting a large low cost on the precise price of a fare.

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I counsel that actual “free transit” be proposed the place ridership the transit levy is faraway from property taxes, and taxpayers not pay the annual deficit or the LRT long-term debt. The place then would the huge transit funding come from? From decreasing the bloated paperwork throughout the Metropolis of Ottawa.

The Metropolis of Edmonton requires 10,000 municipal staff and the Metropolis of Calgary requires 13,000. These numbers embody emergency providers akin to police, hearth and paramedics. Each cities have the identical inhabitants as Ottawa. Why, then, does the Metropolis of Ottawa require greater than 18,000 staff?

A discount of 20 per cent within the variety of metropolis staff would pay for “free transit” to the monetary delight of each transit riders and property taxpayers.

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Leo Berndt, Ottawa

A multilateral reply to grain convoys

As many in sub-saharan Africa and the components of the Center East now face the spectre of famine as a result of blockade of Ukraine’s ports, the world group is in full hand-wringing mode. NATO naval mine clearance and escorts for grain convoys are out of the query.

Nonetheless, our prime minister might suggest a multilateral answer: a United Nations-flagged operation with naval escorts supplied by navies acceptable to all sides. India, Brazil, South Africa and Turkey come to thoughts, as all of them area totally skilled navies.

Samphe Lhalungpa, retired UN worldwide growth skilled, Ottawa