A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesda , September 19, 2001

TERRACE _

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

PUBLISHER: ROD LINK
ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. = V8G 5R2
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Nursing shift
PROVINCIAL APPROVAL of a program to
train licensed practical nurses at Northwest Com-
munity College will not just address the need to
overcome a medical personnel shortage.

It’s part of a plan to reduce the overall budge-
tary strain of delivering health care in British Co-
lumbia. The numbers speak for themselves. Last
year’s provincial health care budget was approx-
imately $8.4 billion. This year it is listed at $9.4
billion and, already, provincial officials report
they are running $400 million in the hole despite
that $1 billion addition. Clearly, the provincial
government has no choice but to change the way
each and every health care dollar is spent.

What will happen is a replacement of registered
nurses with licensed practical nurses. Simply put,
registered nurses are too expensive for the major-
ity of the tasks they now perform at hospitals and
other health care facilities. They also take too long
to train — four years — compared to the 15-month
training period for a practical nurse.

Health planning minister Sindi Hawkins put it
this way at the July 18 open cabinet meeting:
“We think it makes sense to add more licensed
practical nurses to acute care so they can use their
skills to help nurses, and then registered nurses
can use their skills more effectively with
patients.”

Doing this won’t be easy. For one, this strategy .
reverses one adopted in the early 1990s. Hospi- :
tals around the province, including Mills Memor- :

iat Hospital here in Terrace, laid off practical

nurses in favour of registered ones, The idea was .

to have the best trained People possible to care for
patients:- ib e.cwon ne

dey EG tle

‘As well: inténtioned as that may, “have been, it

col rork

didn’t’ work increased reliance on registered

nurses helped create a shortage when they —

couldn’t be produced fast enough. Things weren’t
helped when the training regime for registered
nurses changed. There are no longer diploma re-
gistered nurses who could be trained in a little
under three years. The standard now is a four-
year degree. Thus, it took longer to produce a re-
gistered nurse.

An economist would explain it in terms of sup-
ply and demand. When there isn’t enough supply
to meet demand, the price of the commodity — in
this case, nurses — goes up. That was clearly the
case this spring and summer when registered
nurses used a worldwide demand and shortage as
leverage in their contract demands.

Cutting the reliance on registered nurses will
also help the province restore a balance of power
which now rests with their union. And that may
be the the key reason behind the move to use
more licensed practical nurses.

No employer wants to have its ability to man- ,
age taken away. Boosting the use of practical .

nurses will solve that problem.

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Serving the Terrace and Thomhil area, Published on Wednesday ot toch week at 3210 Clinton Sttest, 1

Tarrace, British Columbia, V8G 5A2,
Stories, photographs, Hlustrailons, designs and typestylea in the Terrace Standard are the proporty of the

petla holders, including Cariboo Prass (1968) Lid, Ite Wlustration repro gervicas and edvertishg

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Special thanks to ail'our contributora and correspondents
2. forthelr time andtalents ="

The horror then and horror now

VICTORIA — More than
half a century has passed
since I was first confronted
with naked horror.

It was sometime during
1943 that Duesseldorf was first
subjected to carpet bombing,

The dogs of war had been
unleashed by Hitler. It also
was Hitler who initiated the
bombing of civilian targets by
laying waste to Coventry.
From then on, it was strike
and counterstrike, ever more
devastating, ever more hor-
rible.

There was a terrible simi-
larity between the images 1
saw in the aftermath of last
Tuesday’s terrorists attacks on
New York and Washington
and what will forever be en-
graved in my brain of those air
raids long ago.

Then I saw hysterical
women and children (trying to
escape the inferno of a fire-

storm created by the unim- ..
x aginable, heat of .a city,.in:

flames, only to get stuck in
the broiling asphalt and dying
as living torches.

Now I saw Lower Manhat-
tan in flames, terrified people
jumping to their death from
the twin towers of the World

’ Trade Center.

Then I saw women scream-
ing in horror and pain, as they
witnessed their children die.

FROM:THE CAPITAL

HUBERT BEYER

Now I saw people scream-
ing in agony, as they realized
someone they loved was trap-
ped and probably dead in the
rubble.

Then I saw the once beauli-
ful city of my birth system-
atically reduced to ghostly
ruins. Now I saw the heart of
America’s greatest city take
on that.same look.

_ hen-[ saw swarms of bom-,..,af

‘bers whose numbers. ‘darkened
the sky approach Duesseldorf,
as we frantically raced for
shelter.

Now I cannot banish from
my mind's eye the image of
the two graceful passenger

. liners slicing into the towers.

If it. was the terrorists, aim
to weaken American. resolve
to support or oppose certain

policies, I can tell them with |

the utmost assurance that they
have failed.

Germany's bombing of Cov-
entry and London and Man-
chester no more lessened Brit-
ish resolve than the bombing
of Germany’s cities by the Al-
lies weakened the German po-
pulation’s resolve.

In fact, whatever the mis-
givings of Germany's popula-
tion may or may not have been
towards Hitler, they were most
certainly dispelled by the un-
ceasing terror of air raids.

Terrorizing civilians was lu-
nacy then and it is now, not to
mention the sheer inhumanity
of it all.

I believe that if I had ever
confronted my tormentors, [
would have wanted to kill
them. And [ was only eight
years old. To my horror, the
darker side of my soul awa-
kened similar feelings in me,
at on witnessed the horrific
umatho Augsdayse. terrorist
Sitick See,

“J will not deal here With
questions of politics. This isn’t
about who started what. This
isn’t about whether the Pa-
lestinians have legitimate
grievances. They have. This
also isn’t about whether Israel
has retaliated too harshly to
Palestinian attacks.

-. This is about an unspeak-

able horror unleashed by terror-
ists on innocent people thou-
sands of miles from the terri-
tory the dispute over which un-
derlies the attack.

Discounting the war of 1812,
in which Canada invaded the -

United States, marched on‘-

Washington and burned down
the White House, there has
never been an attack on the
continental U.S.

The death toll of Tuesday's
terrorist acts threatens to dwarf

‘that of the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbour, something not .

lost on Americans.

I am certain that just as
Pearl Harbour, in the words of
a Japanese general’s warning,
awakened a sleeping lion, this
act will have a similar effect.

I have lived with the terror
of bombings and I know exact-
ly how Americans feel today.

If I were Osama bin Laden
or any other terrorist with
American bload on his hands, I

would no longer sleep soundly."
Then I was eight. Now I'am’ <

66." Terror, death ‘and ‘destruc-
tion invade my life now as they
did then.

Will it ever end? Not in my
lifetime, I’m afraid. -

Beyer can be reached at:
E-mail: hubert@coolcom.com;
Tel (250). 381-6900; Web
http:/[www.hubertbeyer.com

Tios on cleaning up your act

“COMPUTERS, KEY-
BOARDS, phones, fax ma-
chines and copiers are the
main spreaders of bacteria and
viruses,” warns the brochure of
a local computer cleaning
company,

That statement doesn’t sir-
prise me. Think of the grubby
keyboards you’ve shared, each
key gummy with a layer of
crud, and the phones with
fingerprints as legible as those
rolled on an ink pad at RCMP

* headquarters.

Where might those hands
have been before imprinting
on the keyboard or phone
you’re using?

A week ago, as I began
typing my column, the “o”
stuck more than usual. It’s al-
ways been a sluggish key.
Often I had to backspace and
fit in an “o”, but last Wednes-
day morning the “o” went
down and refused to spring up.
In desperation, I polka dotted
my copy with inked “o”'s.

At 9 am. I phoned a type-
writer repair shop for advice.

Me. TOOK ME A
a JONGTIM E10
PRETARE. FOR. |

= ts WER KSHO P

THROUGH BIFOCALS
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

“The key’s probably stuck
from dirt and debris collected
underneath.

“You could try blowing out
the dust with a can of com-
pressed air. Or you could bring
the machine in for a checkup,
$95”

The $95 made me exhale
like a can of compressed air. I
protect this obsolete machine
with a custom-fitted cover of
vinyl boat topping.

You READ THE
7 BACKGROUND on)
rl Be FLIGHT HERE! J

f AND SEND ger
PAPER IN 3
pb ONTHS LAT ae

The cover keeps out dust,
splashes if there might be any,
and straight pins that might
fall from the pincushion hang-
ing on the wall above,

But before this discarded
Canon came to me, it served
in a government office. How
many crullers or Oreos drib-
bled into the keyboard?

Hauling it to a repair shop
would be no picnic; it weighs
46 pounds, Then someone sug-
gested, “Call a computer
cleaner.”

One lives in our neighbour-
hood. Still, it was a novel no-
tion,

When I learned typing from
A correspondence course, one
lesson taught me to dismantle
the working parts, brush out
the dust, wipe it with alcohol,
and oil the carriage.

But an electric typewriter is
abit different. I don’t know
how to “pop off” the keys to
get underneath where dust ga-
thers.

The cleaner I phoned had

’ time, hoisted my typewriter as

though it were featherweight,
marched it to her truck, and a
few hours later brought it back
clean, keys smooth to the
touch, the “o” responsive as it
ought to be.

She also can reassemble the
parts she removed, a page mis-
sing from my correspondence
lesson. .

Her brochure warns that dust
accumulating inside a compu-
ter causes overheating, event-
val chip burnout and malfunc-
tioning drives. This in turn can
lead to data loss. Not good. No
doubt regular cleaning of a
computer could save on repair
bills, reduce down time, and
consequently increase produc-
tivity.

Add the risk of dirty key-
boards spreading infections
such as colds, flu, and hepatitis
C, and regular cleaning of
shared office equipment be-
comes economical mainte-
nance.

For my “o” difficulty the
cleaning cost proved to be a
big saving. ,

&
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OKAY Gurs! How | ‘d.

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