Others would suffer if bus service cut
I am concerned about the proposal to reduce bus service near the encampment on Pandora Avenue.
Although drivers face a difficult situation and experience distress driving through these areas we cannot underserve the stops close to the area without disrupting the access to the local Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction offices.
I am a recipient of funding from the ministry, and I need a bus stop close by the offices in order to be able to access said funding.
B.C. Transit serves the public, and not just those who can afford to avoid the area. Certainly I have felt uncomfortable about the open drug use and threat of violence while waiting in the area to access the ministry building — and I deserve the opportunity to access the services safely as well — but not serving the area isn’t a solution to the problem; it’s simply avoiding it.
I hope B.C. Transit can be a partner with the city council to help those experiencing homelessness, but it shouldn’t be by shutting access.
Ashleigh Logan
Victoria
Opening drug use led to these problems
Re: “Island Health plans facilities for ‘hard-to-house’ patients after nurses complain of safety risks,” Aug. 20.
The article explicitly says the demographic is changing. Of course it is!
When you start opening up drug use to the masses what do you think is going to happen? It is heartbreaking to see what has transpired with regulation, the slippery slope of drug users, the open use and the growing interest and addiction from our younger generation.
Drug use leads to brain damage — plain and simple and our streets are showing it.
The need for “special facilities” to care for people that have been brought back to life over and over and over … and over again, is only going to grow.
Remember that commercial with the fried egg “this is your brain … this is your brain on drugs.”
Who gets held accountable for this?
Dana Miller
Victoria
Psychiatric hospital is needed in B.C.
Re: “Island Health plans facilities for ‘hard to house’ patients after nurses complain of safety risks,” Aug. 20.
There is a petition in northern B.C. asking the provincial government to work with Northern Health to develop a psychiatric hospital in B.C.
Many of us in the north have come to the conclusion that community resources will never adequately care for people with the highest needs for psychiatric care, especially when they are violent.
It is a mistake to develop several smaller units that don’t have the capacity for psychiatric care.
The “experiment” where B.C. has not had a psychiatric hospital for the past 12 years shows us that a psychiatric hospital is an essential part of the health-care system.
Island Health should rethink the idea of several small units for hard-to-house people and start thinking about developing a psychiatric hospital on the island.
Putting all the resources in one place will allow for better management of the “hard to house” patients and will be better for the staff as they will have a lot more support in dealing with these patients in a psychiatric hospital than they would in smaller units.
As to the thought that there are a “small number” of such patients, I think the streets of Victoria and many of our cities would tell us otherwise.
Barb Kane, MD, FRCP
Psychiatrist
Prince George
B.C.’s health care (or lack thereof)
I was involved in a workplace accident in 2020. I’ve had two surgeries on the injury and require a third. However, the third can’t happen until I have a CT scan.
According to the doctor’s office the current wait time for a scan is 664 days. Almost 22 months. How is this acceptable?
To get an appointment to see a doctor one must do one of a number of things.
Such as, get into a lineup at an urgent care facility. Try being one of the first lucky people to get an actual person on the line when calling a “drop in” clinic. Go the emergency department at a hospital. Jump in front of a car to get immediate care.
OK, the last one was a bit over the top, but you get my drift.
Personally, I have heard enough from the different levels of government blaming the others.
How about they just get to work on fixing it. There are any number of organizations raising money to purchase equipment.
When did this become the norm? But because they are then the dollars saved should be going to infrastructure and personnel.
Population continues to increase but nothing is being done to look after folks.
Ron Sleen
Victoria
Two lives in limbo because of drugs
Why, when people have a drug addiction, do their rights to self-harm take precedence, and why do government and support agencies enable that self-harm with safe injection sites, supportive housing units, dozens of support teams charged with trying to minimize fatalities while at the same time handing out “harm reduction” supplies?
I have spent the past six years watching my 22-year-old daughter become entrenched in the drug culture, street life, while trying to advocate for her and support her.
However, I am up against the opinion that my daughter’s “choice” to self-harm is her right, which in my mind completely goes against what an addiction is, where there is no longer any choice whether or not to use the drug; it has become at the very least a physical need.
What makes this all the more frustrating is that my daughter has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and never had the mental capacity to make decisions in the first place.
I would really like an opportunity to talk about what the last six years have been like for me, and my daughter, who wanders this life, smoking and nodding off, looking for drugs, smoking and nodding off, looking for drugs, which is the sad extent of her daily routine.
We are both in limbo. She doesn’t have the mental capacity to make a change and I don’t have the power to make the change she needs.
She drifts through her day unaware that I drift through mine, waiting to hear if the last time I saw her, hugged her, told her I loved her will actually be the last time.
Luanna Larusson
Victoria
More water for fighting fires in Nanoose
The Aug. 21 article on the Nanoose Bay reservoir piece missed an important point: the additional reservoir would significantly increase the amount of water capacity available to fight fires in Nanoose Bay as it would add a third large tank up on Notch Hill, high above many of the existing homes.
Until such time as the “Lakes District” is built out, that additional high-pressure, on-demand water (the kind firefighters need when they hook up their big hoses) would be available for use with existing residents, at a cost of $34 per year (about the cost of lunch for two in nearby restaurants).
Further, the work could be carried out on Regional District of Nanaimo land and be in place relatively quickly.
It appears to me that the financing/developer issue has overshadowed a potential pragmatic, low-cost option to improving fire protection on the Nanoose Bay Peninsula, an area subject to recurring stage 4 water restrictions and ongoing drought conditions.
I think this improved firefighting capacity point might have been overlooked by some people who signed the petition. If so, it may not be too late to take this benefit into account.
Peter Ladouceur
Nanoose Bay
Congratulations to the oldest synagogue
Re: “A rabbi’s kindness enriches a life,” letter, Aug. 21.
I read with interest the letter by the retired Anglican priest, the Rev. Robin Protheroe, concerning his positive experience childhood with Rabbi Pincus J. Goodblatt at the Emanu-El synagogue.
As a Christian, (also Anglican), I contend that it is important to always remember that Jesus himself was a Jew speaking primarily to fellow Jews and in a First Century context. He was not a 25th Century westerner.
The bonds between Judaism and Christianity are bonds that are timeless. In the Hebrew Scriptures, (our Old Testament), we are told by Micah that the call on our lives is to humbly love kindness and do justice; a calling perfectly embodied in the life of Jesus.
Congratulations to the Emanu-El synagogue on flourishing and having the oldest synagogue building still in use in Canada.
Greg Robinson
North Saanich
Let’s get tougher on excessive speeding
Re: “Driver clocked at 123 km/h also failed roadside test,” Aug. 21.
The ICBC stats say that, in the 10-year period 2013-22, speed was the leading factor in fatal car crashes for eight of those years. In just the five-year period from 2018-22, the number of crash fatalities in B.C. was 284.
In the latest Times Colonist article, the fine cited for excessive speeding is pocket change; impounding a vehicle for a month mere temporary inconvenience; a three-month licence suspension no worse. All meaningless.
For this type of driving the province could look at permanently revoking licences and insurance, auctioning off vehicles for charity or throwing them into a compacter. That’s the effective way. The easier approach is to continue letting a few hundred people die needlessly every year.
Brian Nimeroski
Sooke
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