“And you are charged with failing to sign your driving
licence!” : :

EDITORIAL |
Back to ‘Feudalism’!

T he report made public last week by W. Stewart Martin,
chief adjudicator for the public service staff relations
board of Canada, relative to unsettled postal workers’
grievances under Postmaster-General Eric Kierans ought to
make that Liberal factotum blush, even if it did little or
nothing to ‘adjudicate’ postal-workers’ legitimate ‘beefs’!

The report describes: the Kierans’ administration as
“‘feudal’’—an establishment which still adheres to 19th century
master-and-servant precepts.” It scores the autocratic and
“high-handed manner of implementing new working systems’’
etc. since Kierans began to “‘make-over’’ the postal service
and disregard as he chose, all previous union agreement rights.

The adjudicators report however did little or nothing to
advance the demands of the letter carriers, and especially
their “‘portal-to-portal’’ transportation demands during lunch
breaks. Now, however, this may be provided only one way
—back to the job.

Thus aside from correctly classifying the Kierans postal
management as belonging to the ‘‘feudal’’ age in its attitude
towards the nation’s postal workers, the report has done little
else. Properly tagged however by such a board, the task of
winning back some of their rights before Kierans began his
wrecking activities should be a little easier for Canada’s postal
workers. The Trudeau hierarchy can hardly pretend to a “Just
Society”’ while its ‘‘feudal’’ postal administration seeks to kick
its postal ‘‘serfs’’ around at will!

Outlaw Germ Warfare!

tT horror of U.S. chemical and germ warfare in
. & Vietnam, to say nothing of similar U.S. crimes a
decade ago in Korea, makes the world call of United Nations

General-Secretary U T:.ant for a world-wide pact banning the :

development, manufacture, stock-piling, and/or use of all such
criminal weapons of modern warfare an imperative MUST.
Certainly it will meet with a ready response from civilized and
humane people everywhere. >

~But not from those who amass huge profits from the
manufacture of such barbaric weapons —unless compelled by
the mass will of the people!

Following the horrors of chemical and gas warfare in
World War 1, (and later in the Hitler death camps) the Geneva
Protocol of 1925 was ratified by more than 60 of the world’s
government to outlaw such crimes. Only two governments
failed to ratify the Geneva Protocol, the United States and
Japan. That left the U.S. “free” to resort to chemical and
germ warfare at will.

It also left others which did sign the Geneva Protocol, such
as Canada,to smugly, hypocritically and very quietly garner
big profits from the production of such horror weapons —as an
‘aid’ of course to a ‘‘friendly ally’’ engaged in
genocial warfare in Vietnam—as earlier in\ Korea.

Canadians have a job on hand. To compel the Trudeau
government to openly, loudly, and clearly signify their
unanimous support of U Thant’s world appeal for a return to
civilized norms of behaviour; for the outlawing of chemical
and germ warfare—as a basic step towards outlawing all war!

PSone

P

‘West Coast editio

Editor—TOM McEWEN
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH

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Second class mail registration number 1560,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE —JULY 11, 1969 —Page 2

SSS SSS

For the car owner—

‘The cost would be less,
and the treatment better’

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Quite a few motorists have had
the unhappy experience of going
up to their cars (or where their

_ Cars were supposed to be) only to

find them gone— hauled away on
the instructions of the police. At
present two privately-owned tow
truck firms have a contract with
the City to tow away cars under
certain Sections of the Motor
Vehicle Act & Criminal Code.
The stiff fines and tow truck
charges are sometimes not the
only penalties. There have been
complaints about cars being
handled with unnecessary
roughness. If the owner doesn’t

happen to have the $7.50 towing
charge in cash on him he’s just
out of luck. The tow firms refuse
to accept cheques under any
circumstances.

There have also been com-
plaints about tow firms preying

on the unfortunate victims of’

car accdents. Today these trucks
monitor police cars and
Whenever they hear of an
accident they rush to the scene
to be the first there to snatch the
tow job and any related benefits.

City Council is at present
considering by-laws which would
make it an offence to come to the

scene of a car accident unless

requested, to try and convince a

car owners to send their car 1
any specific repair shop or

take the car anywhere other thal

the destination requested by the
driver. ;

However, I don’t think this
goes far enough. It has always
seemed wrong to me that private
tow truck firms should remove
cars on police direction. Why
shouldn’t the City have its ow?

towing service? It could handle qf

cars that break parking rules 4S
well as accident cases. The C95
to the motorist could be less 2”
the treatment better.

How to cut Medicare costs

and still win back health

By MABEL RICHARDS

Seven years ago last
Wednesday, at 2 a.m. in the
morning, a handful of people
scrubbed the last splash of
fresh paint off the floors and
windows of an ancient building in
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan,
then went home to sleep a few
hours before returning the next
morning with .armloads _ of
flowers.

That day marked a milestone
in the history of medicine, for it
was the opening of the first
people-owned medical clinic in
Canada.

Led by Dr. Orville Hjertaas,
former head of surgery in the
Prince Albert City Hospital, and
a dedicated believer in
medicare, the co-operative clinic
came into being during the bitter
doctors’ strike which medical
men launched against the
implementing of the C.C.F.
governments medical care plan.
Dr. Hjertaas had been ‘voted
out’ of the private clinic which
he headed because he supported
the plan, and his fellow doctors
were violently opposed.

Young Dr. Hjertaas had the
support of many hundreds of
people in setting up the
community clinic, amongst them
and first on the scene the
regional director of the I.W.A.,
Wheat pool directors, and Farm
Union heads. A banquet in his
honor during this period saw
over $40,000 pledged during the
evening, and men, women and
children in the area eagerly
subscribed $5.00 shares to keep
the clinic going.

It was an exciting example of
how people will react in the face
of intimidation -- intimidation
which was supported by tens of
thousands of dollars poured into
the province to back the doctor’s
strike, and the viciously hostile
press, radio, and T.V.

But perhaps the most startling
result of that first community
clinic and the others that
followed is the fact that these
community clinics have cut the
cost of medicare to an
astounding degree.

The cost of medical treatment
per patient at the Prince Albert

clinic was substantially below
the. Saskatchewan average. In
1966 the Saskatchewan average
cost per patient was $35.28; for
the clinic it was $16.68. In 1967
the provincial average was
$37.24; the clinic’s average had
dropped to $15.70!

Deducting the federal
government’s $14 per capita
contribution to health services
from the group practice’s
average cost of $15.70 means this
group health practise costs the
Saskatchewan taxpayer $1.70 per
patient in 1967.

Do these: figures mean that
patients in the Prince Albert
clinic receive less care and
poorer care than others? On-the
contrary, according to reports
from that centre, the care has
never been better.

The Prince Albert clinic grew
from its tiny beginnings in the
old plumbing shop to a beautiful
building, one of the finest in
Prince Albert, where
approximately 15 doctors, many
of them specialists, look after
the needs of their patients.

It is preventive medicine at its
best. Members are called in for
regular checkups, and
consequently surgical
procedures are . substantially
down amongst clinic patients as
against the Saskatchewan
average.

The rate of hospitalization was
much lower than the provincial
average...

In 1967 the Saskatchewan
average was 228 patients
hospitalized and 2,119 days in
hospital per 1,000 insured
compared to the group practice
average of 70.9 hospitalized and
623 days in hospital!

As one legislator said, ‘‘If the
average Saskatchewan rates of
utilization were as low as the
group. practice
utilization, it would have saved

the taxpayers and sick of this ~

province $31 and one-half million
dollars on the basis of 1967
costs.” :

Surely it is obvious, in view of
these figures, that the ‘deterrent
fee’ which Liberal leader Ross
Thatcher initiated to keep
patients from using their

rates of

insurance so often, had its rools
other than in the people. Who i
guilty of the high costs ?
medicare in the face of SUC
proof . . . the patient or Me
‘private practise’ doctors? _
Another most interesting
sidelight which has emerge
from group practise
Saskatchewan is the fact

report that of some 5,000 drué
preparations available
Canada, clinic doctors say they
needed less than 300 in all.

Dr. Reynold Gold told thé
conference that many drugs
were created for no better
reason than to enable drue
manufacturers to produce a dr’
without paying royalties to the
original producer. He said the!
might be no difference at all a
the effect: of ohe drug 0F
patient’s illness.

All in all, the story of ae
community co-operative clini
which had their beginnings seV®

: eC
years ago in Saskatchewan have

many lessons for B.C.’ites W
are paying M.S.A. and
Medical Plan premiums.
There are more efficien
economical ways of handlin
health of the people than
Bennett government he
devised. In this field, ! ;
Community Clinics ie
Saskatchewan have shown
way.

t and
g the

“Drugs, my friends, are A 3
opium of the people" —

in 4
that
Community Health doctors —

in

the