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Letters Jan. 29: Collaboration key in finding forest solutions; a desperate search for a doctor's care

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Old growth trees near Port Renfrew. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Finding a balance on logging old growth

I couldn’t disagree more with a letter in the Jan. 24 Times Colonist, suggesting that because politicians have fumbled the ball on old growth, “the only light on the horizon is the protesters.”

Of course, we remain concerned about the provincial government’s deferral of 2.6 million hectares of old growth without the benefit of any meaningful consultation. However, we don’t believe this is an all-or-nothing proposition.

British Columbians are passionate about protecting at-risk old growth and we share that passion — but also feel there is an opportunity to find a balance that most people in our province could support, and ensure decision-making is informed with a true understanding of the issues and the consequences.

We will be working collaboratively with those in the forest sector to seek possible solutions and find common ground, and are also willing to meet with those fundamentally opposed to the forest sector, if they choose to truly engage.

The process will not challenge government’s broad objectives, but rather find the means within those goalposts to move the sector forward.

We are not simply going to throw in the towel. There’s too much at stake.

Bob Brash, executive director
Truck Loggers Association of B.C.

At 85 years of age, searching for a doctor

About a year ago, I was fortunate to go to the James Bay Medical Centre walk-in clinic and receive treatment and medication for a medical problem.

When I called this week to make an appointment with the walk-in clinic, I was told they could no longer accept walk-in patients as they only had doctors available to registered patients. Now what do I do?

My doctor has been off sick for two years and he hopes to be able to return in 2023. I pray he recovers well and that he will be able to return.

I wrote a letter to Adrian Dix ­regarding the serious breakdown of the health-care system, lack of care for ­seniors and about a month later, received a ­“concerned” letter, but no hope or help in finding a doctor.

At 85 years, the desperate search for medical help will be ahead of me again.

In November, former nearby walk-in clinics were no longer available. I was down to my last four pills of my prescriptions and before I was able to find a walk-in clinic far away from my location and got lucky to find a physician to give me a prescription for all, but no refill included.

When they run out in another four weeks will he still be available, and will I be able to have them renewed? I discovered that the new Cook Street Medical Centre is still taking walk-in patients.

Appointments can only be made by calling at 8:30 a.m. and if their list is full for the day, you must phone back the next morning and so on until they find a space for you; I will keep trying.

Will they, too, run out of doctors to look after patients? Health care in B.C is at a crisis level — medical madness!

Gerry Bell
Victoria

Stop the blame game on doctor shortage

I’m not certain about the point of blaming the current NDP government, with 4.5 years in power, for a crisis that has been decades in the making.

Do we want to re-elect the B.C. Liberal Party — the government that ignored the growing catastrophe in health care ­during its entire 16 years in power?

Perhaps we should spread the blame around, give some to the Harper ­Conservatives and the Trudeau Liberals. After all, the federal government holds the health-care purse strings.

Or maybe it’s time to stop wasting our energy on the useless exercise of blaming and start demanding that those we elect at every level do their jobs.

Beverley Bowes
Victoria

Plenty of questions about health-care costs

As I read the commentary about primary care physician fees (again) there are ­several questions I’d like answered:

Why do we have some physicians regularly billing over $1 million annually while others have problems keeping an office or clinic open?

How did it become a default solution to allocate an annual lump sum for physicians services and “let the doctors fight over it” — something they have obligingly done since the inception of Medicare?

Why do we have an arm’s-length body to adjudicate prices for our utilities, when the annual costs to the province are comparable, but leave negotiations for physicians fees to a “backroom” process between the government of the day and the medical association’s internal machinations?

How much of a crisis in primary care will it take for government to establish a body, similar to the B.C. Utilities Commission, and reform the physician payment model to better meet the needs of patients?

Once again, how long can we continue to repeat previous errors but expect better solutions? Waiting for answers.

David Blair, MD, ret’d
Victoria

Victoria’s ugliness is on full display

Re: “Downtown Victoria not a pretty face,” letter, Jan. 27.

My current stay in Victoria for cancer treatments has given me the opportunity to stroll around this iconic city. And what I saw was a city in decay.

Amongst the beautiful shops, restaurants and pubs, the ugliness stood in stark contrast. Alcoves filled with trash and street folk, shooting up as small children walked by. Groups huddled in doorways sharing a beer or sleeping one off.

Has Victoria become so accustomed to this that they no longer see what’s ­happening to their city?

Valerie Axford
Qualicum Beach

Isitt is a great asset, so ignore his flaws

I’m glad Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt ­apologized for his inappropriate email use and Twitter post.

I’m a Fairfield property owner two blocks from Beacon Hill Park. I’m glad Isitt made the homeless feel comfortable residing there while mobilizing council to meet their basic needs for many months.

He took time to visit them — to treat them like human beings. Meanwhile, ­council approved millions of dollars of high-end developer permits for people who can still play the housing-for-profit game.

Isitt has the courage to support a safer community through police defunding — instead of defunding all the other departments and programs. Council does that relative to inflation.

Police defunding means no current police employee will lose their job, and the police won’t have to waste their time on the non-violent poor and drug users. They will be able to focus all of their effort on ­murder, sexual and physical violence.

I have an incurable neurological disease. It’s hard to get around Victoria. Isitt was the first to urge council to fund highly accessible free bus transit.

That’s the community I want to live in. I’ll take Isitt with his rambunctious mistakes over others who throw stones at cheap and expensive glass houses.

Larry Wartels
Victoria

Vaccine passports are not helping

I was astounded to hear that Dr. Bonnie Henry was extending the use of vaccine passports. In my Jan. 6 column, I pointed out that, in the month before the Omicron virus began its upward spiral, fully vaccinated Canadians were both contracting and spreading the Delta variant.

In mid-December, Ontario (the only province that reports by vaccination status) reported 809 fully vaccinated Delta variant cases. And all of those people had been issued vaccine passports.

It’s now clear that Omicron’s spread is unrelated to vaccination status. In a Dec. 22 interview, Henry stated that ­Omicron’s ease of transmission means “it is very likely over time that all of us will have exposure to this variant.”

We now see from reports from South Africa and the Europe that Omicron offers a path to herd immunity with relatively little serious illness.

A study published in the journal Nature found that many people who have recovered from SARs-CoV-2 will make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives.

This “natural immunity” effect is comparable to that developed for measles and other viral diseases. That explains why EU countries are issuing “digital certificates of recovery,” giving those who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 the same status as fully vaccinated, ­without requiring future booster shots.

Meanwhile, in British Columbia, the recovered are treated the same as ­unvaccinated. And the useless and ­misleading vaccine cards that almost all other countries have eliminated are being dredged up by a public health officer who claims to ‘”follow the science.”

Gwyn Morgan
Victoria

A note of thanks to those at ICBC

I was recently the innocent party of a parking lot fender-bender.

The following day I filed an ICBC claim online. It was a good site with easy-to-follow instructions.

Within three hours we had an approval to go ahead with the repairs with a waiver of my deductible.

I received speedy and excellent from ICBC. Thanks ICBC.

Richard C. Parsley
Nanaimo

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