Ad - The lerrace Standard, Wednesday, December 7, 1994

TERRACE

~ STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

ADDRESS: 4647 Lavelle Avec., Terrace, B.C. * V8G 188
TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 * FAX: (604) 638-8432
MODEM: 638-7247 ‘

What’s up?

‘THE NEW regional health board isn’t even offi-
cial yet and already there’s trouble brewing on
the horizon.

The issue revolves around teleradiology and
goes to the heart of the province’s plan to trans-
fer health care spending and decision powers
away from a centralized bureaucracy in Victoria
to regional boards and community health care
councils,

This is happening under two programs —
Closer to Home, which allocates money to re-
place hospital-based services with community-
based ones and New Directions, the official title
given to the creation of regional health boards

and community health.councils.

So this fall the interim regional health board
submitted a list of programs it wanted financed
under Closer to Home. Ranking second on the
list was a request for more than $400,000 for a
regional teleradiology service.

Teleradiology is the fancy name for telephone
line connections between hospitals and health
clinics. It means x-rays and other types of scans
can be transmitted electronically. And that
means specialists in one place can help
physicians and specialists in another place. To
borrow a phrase, it’s the next best thing to being
there.

Teleradiology is regarded as a natural fit for the
northwest. The ability to transmit images means
that patients need not travel to the specialists and
vice versa, It means fewer hospital patient days
and reduced costs all the way around.

But the provincial government gave the Roman
emperor-like thumbs down to the plan. It said
teleradiology is a capital cost and didn’t fall un-
der the Closer to Home financing format.

“That?s ticked off the interim regional health
board which said the province has changed its
mind several times about the financing rules,

Although the province has promised to study
teleradiology with a view to financing it from an-
other source it leaves the following question
hanging. If there is to be local and regional con-

trol over health care spending and decisions,
what gives here?

Either the province has confidence in its
decentralization plans or it doesn’t. Closer to
Home may mean farther away and New Direc-
tions may mean the same old thing.

Trashy talk

OTHER THAN making trash compactors
mandatory for all northwest households, officials
face a Herculean task in their effort to reduce the
amount of stuff going into our dumps.

That’s because what they’re going to have to do
up here represents the biggest invasion of
government into private and corporate lives since
they dreamed up income tax.

Proposals for various recycling programs,
changes in the way garbage is picked up and
composting all are going to be costly and time
consuming,

Strong responses from the public are going to
be required before anything becomes official.

res cena
GNA 9) PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L. Hanm "=

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard! Credgeur
NEWS COMMUNITY: Jeft Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter
OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher

DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur
- ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS:
Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros,
CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Charlene Matthews

Serving Ihe Telrace atea, Published on Wednesday ol each week by Cariboo Pless ti96sy Ld. al 464;
Lazelle Ave, Terrace, British Columbia,

Stories, photographs, ilustrations, designs and typestyles in the Tetrace Standatd are the properly of the
copyright holders, inching Catiboo Press (1968) Ud, it's illustration tepid services and advertising
agencies, .

Reproduction in whole of in par, without wraten permission, Is specifically prohitited

Authorized as sepond dass rr pending the Post Office Depariment, fot payment of postage incash,

Special thanks to all our contributors and cotrespondents
~ for thelr time and talents

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Unions stuck in time warp

VICTORIA — I’ve been a
supporter of trade unions for
more years than I care to re-
member, but what gocs on in
Port Alberni makes me cringe.

Refusing to work side by
side with non-union or non-
affiliated union companies at
MacMillan Bloedel’s pulp mill
site in Port Alberni, the labour
movement has declared all-out
war on the forestry giant.

The row began when Mac-
Blo first applied its open-shop
policy two months ago by
hiring TNL Construction for
its Port Alberni project, Pickets
went up, tempers flared almost
daily, at mes resulting in
violence.

The confrontation escalated
when the B,C, Federation of
Labour got into the act and
called for a consumer boycott
against MacMillan Bloedel.

With infammatory and ir-
responsible rhetoric, union
leaders declared they’re will-
ing to pay the price, even if it
macans losing jobs, conducting
province-wide forest and pulp
industry strikes, and driving
MacMillan Bloedel out of the
province,

“We are telling — the
customer, ‘don’t buy this pro-
duct, don’t buy the product we
produce,’ knowing full well

HUBERT BEYER

that if i runs its course,
eventually that will put us out
of work,’’ said IWA president
Gerry Stoney at the feder-
ation’s annual convention in
Vancouver. “But before that

"happens, MB will do a lot of -

bleeding along the way,” he
added.

For sheer folly, you can’t
beat the course of action the
unions are taking. Boycotting
the very company that pays
their wages, even admitting
that their actions may
eventually cost them their
livelihood, challenges onc’s
imagination. It makes lIem-
mings look like survivalists.

Over to Premier Harcourt.
Surely, the premier is telling
the unions that neither picket

line violence nor the boycott
are acceptable to the govern-
ment and the people of British
Columbia.

Not so. Nol only did the

- premier gloss over the bitter

labour dispute during his

--specch at the labour federation

convention but interviewed
later, he wouldn’t admit that
labour’s - boycott of British
Columbia’s forest industry is
no different than the boycott of
our forest products the cn-
vironmentalists have been ad-
vocaling world-wide.

The government, Harcourt
told reporters, took on the en-
vironmentalisis because they
were ‘‘lying’? about British
Columbia's forest practices.
There was no evidence that
labour’s boycott .was based. on
lics,

It gets cven crazier. Labour
and the environmentalists,
antagonists if ever there werc
any, scem. to have joined
forces in the boycott against
MacMillan Blocdel,

Len Werden, president of the
affiliated construction unions
has been quoted as thanking
the environmentalists for their
kindness in helping the B.C,
Federation of Labour prepare
its boycolt against MacBlo.,

And now for the kicker: TNL

.company — that
unions to declare war on Mac-'

Construction, the ‘‘rat-union’’
caused the

Millan Bloedel in the first
place, was recently awarded a
multi-million dollar B.C. 21
highway construction project
on the Sunshine Coast.

As I mentioned al the outset,
I have traditionally supported
the trade union movement. [
belonged to a union, the News-
paper Guild, for years, serving
as president for one year. Iam
familiar with the crucial role
unions played in bringing jus-
lice 10 the working men and
womien.

But the escalating violence

on the picket lincs in Port Al-
berni, the hawkish rhetoric
with which the unions proceed
against MacMillan  Bloedel
leaves me wandering whether
these people got trapped in a
1920s time warp.

MacMillan Blocdel was

never under any obligation: to

use only union companics, At
besi, there was a tacil under-
standing. The company had
every right to hire TNL Con-
struction, a right that has been

confirmed by the Labour Rela-

tions Board.

It’s time unions leaders re-
examine their role in today’s
socicty.

Donors win life’s lottery

EXCEPT FOR Los Angeles

and New York City, British
Columbia has the largest unre-
lated bone marrow donor
registry.

Last Monday news teams
from the Vancouver Province
and BCTV flew to Terrace to
report the meeting between 7-
year-old Laura Beaton of
Kitimat and RCMP Inspector
Gilles Soucy of Montreal.

Laura’s recovery from a can-
cer fright -after a successful
bone marrow transplant from
Inspector Soucy is a personal
story full of courage,
generosity, and tenacily,

Seldom are big city news
people lured to Terrace by
good news. Usually they?re
here to report an embarrass-
ment such as a leachers strike
ora chilling criminal trial.

| had looked forward to al-

tending the information meet- .

ing on bone marrow donations
for transplants...until I read the
newspaper —_ annouricement’s

JUST ONE MORE
TREE AND OUR

me NEw TRAIL WILL
me EACH THE ROAD

TFHROUGH BIFOCALS

CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

fine print. ‘Bone marrow
donors must be between the
ages of 17 and 59 and meet the
requirements for donating
blood.”

Age ruled me oul, I was dis-
appointed. ] had envisioned my
Swedish ancestry making my
blood match special, just the
lickel for saving the life of
some leukemia patient ,

It's not the first time my

NO! DON'T
CUT IT?!

blood’s been rejected. Years
ago, my hemoglobin was so
low, the Red Cross offered me
ared cell transfusion.

Nor is it the first time age has
curtailed my plans. I’m too
young to shop at senior dis-
counts, but too old to climb
ladders according to my fam-
ily.

I’in beginning to understand
how my two-year-old grand-
daughter feels in the daily tug-
of-war belween being too
young or too old to engage in
some activities.

We tell her she’s too young
to ride her sister's two-
wheeler, but too old for a
boltle; loo young to fasten her
Seat belt bul too old to get
away with pulling the cat’s Cur.

Only three percent of Cana-
dians donate blood. Fewer » far
fewer - belong to a bone mar-
row registry. More are needed
for bath.

Requests for bone marrow
transplants are growing, yet

SORRY! Too
LATE! WHY?

-

blood matchics arc rare, espe-
cially for some ethnic groups,

Think of the fulfillment of ~

restoring health to someone
like Laura with no more effort
than allowing a syringe of
bone marrow to be withdrawn
from your hip bone,

Granied, visualizing a needle
the size of a turkey baster
being shoved into your rump
might make you hesitate, but
any discomfort is shortlived,
Recovery is almost guaranteed,

Compare that to the weeks of
nauseating chemotherapy and
radiation paticnis Hike Laura
undergo in preparation for
receiving a bone marrow
transplant, in the process
losing both their vitality and
their bair.

Every registered bone mar-

row donor is a potential life- ©
saver. And as Inspector Soucy. -

said, saving a life through a
bone marrow donation is as ex-
hilarating as winning a lotiery.

THAT'S WHY !

—
Go. anahuaey ‘ah

seve Neh pide ieee oy ae

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