ESTES

Friday, June 4, 1982

EE 18

40° Vol. sisitlen 23

=

A final and urgent appeal to our readers |

As we put the date and volume
Number of this edition of the
Tribune, it tells a story in itself:
there are only eight days left to
Teach $82,000, eight days to reach
Our target of ‘82 in ’82.’

__ This is our last appeal to you,
Our readers and supporters. Our
future is now up to you.

» As the detailed figures on page
11 show, we had $49,711 in at
press time. That leaves us with

$32,289.left to go to reach the tar-
get.

We don’t think we need to re-
mind you of the importance of
maintaining the Tribune for an-

~other year, the growing necessity
of maintaining our fighting voice.
But the urgency is there.

We need every dollar of that
$82,000. Like social services, and
the wages of workers which we
have striven in our pages to de-
fend, there are no cuts to be made

— unless they are to the very flesh
and bone of the paper itself.

So the next eight days are criti-.

cal to our future. And we think
that the more than 40 years of tra-
dition and the fight our support-
ers have put up over those years
will see us through again.

We're asking every one of
those readers and supporters, ur-
gently: if you haven’t made a do-
nation do it now — and, if you
can, adda few dollars to what you
were going to give. If, like hun-
dreds of others around the prov-

Nurses and other staff at North
Vancouver’s Lions Gate Hospital
Staged two demonstrations Mon-
day as part of a continuing prov-
ince-wide action against the pro-
Vincial government’s $100 million
Shortfall in medical funding this
year.

In the morning they handed
leaflets bearing an arresting
“Stop eroding health care’’ sign
to motorists slowed in rush-hour
traffic on the north side of the
Lions Gate bridge. Most people
Teadily accepted the leaflets and
responded with words of support,
demonstrators said.

From noon until 1 p.m. the
LGH staff gave up their lunch

The action is one of several to
be staged at various hospitals by
the Alliance to Save Health Care
in B.C. It will continue “‘until the
People of B.C. force their govern-
Ment to rescind the restraints on
health care,’ said Gordon Mac-
Pherson, president of the Hospi-
tal Employees Union, one of six
unions forming the alliance.

MacPherson joined the LGH
Staff on their information picket
line, carrying a sign that listed
hernia operations as one of sev-
eral ‘‘elective’’ surgery cases peo-
Ple will have to wait for up to eight
Months longer because of the re-
Straint program.

“Tt really scares us. What hap-
Pens when you get smashed up

L = they haven’t got a bed for you

%

LIONS GATE HOSPITAL STAFF .

at the hospital?”’ nurses aid Marie
Russell asked the Tribune.
Russell said the four beds and
one nurse position cut in the Acti-
vacation Wing where she works

means “‘there are 400 people in a
year not getting the treatment
they should be getting.”

Russell’s section provides the
training necessary for stroke and
accident victims who have suffer-
ed partial loss of physical control.
Particularly important in that

process is the emotional support

to help patients overcome the
stress of learning to cope with
their disability, and that will be
harder to provide with decreased
resources, she said.
Lions Gate was the first hospi-

‘tal to announce cuts to its service

following the imposition of bud-
get controls by health minister
Jim Nielsen last month. For LGH
that meant a shortfall of $3,880,-
000 according to the health care
alliance.

In the leaflet handed out in

. protest cutbacks in noon-hour picket.

Monday’s action, the alliance
points out that there is ‘‘no fat to
cut’’ in B.C.’s hospital funding.

‘‘Activity programs for ex-
tended care patients will be wiped
out. X-ray and labor services are
being curtailed. Operating rooms
are closing.. Ambulances are be-
ing turned away. Thousands of
laid-off health care workers will
swell the unemployment rolls,”’
the alliance declares; blaming the
government for favoring mega-
projects over people.

ince, you’ve already made a con-
tribution, please try and make an-
other.

See that your press club goes up
to its target — and beyond. If we
throw everything into the next
eight days, if we mobilize every
dollar from our readers, we can
raise that $32,289. With the same
fighting spirit that has been rallied
since 1935, we think we can reach
the objective the times demand:

82 in ’82.’

|Militancy
|shown in
Parrot's

election

seen hey a

oe

A IRAE NE ATE

1

: 2 RPE TRIE

— page 12 — |

a

ele
ee

breaks to parade around the side- z

walks outside the hospital and =
“Underline the fact that 200 staff = a

and 55 acute-care beds were being a

chopped that day. 3

2

4

All plans ‘ go’ ‘for June 12 rally

All plans are “‘go”’ for the huge
Pua for Peace rally at Peace
Arch Park June 12 and commit-
tees are already at work complet-
Ing the extensive arrangement for
transportation to the border
Park.

Official permission to use
the park facilities on the British
Columbia side was finally con-
firmed this week following a

of the ministry of lands, parks
and housing.

“They have agreed on ficially to
allow us to use the park on the ba-
sis of our commitment to leave
the park in a clean and orderly
fashion,’’ Frank Kennedy, co-
chair of End the Arms Race, told
the Tribune Wednesday.

Rally organizers in Washing-
ton state were still working

clearance, we’re inviting them to
come and join us on the B.C.
side.”

Park officials in the U.S.
earlier denied permission to use
the park following a telephone
call from U.S. Naval Investiga-
tion Services agent William Hom-
berg.

The rally at the Peace Arch,

rally in New York, is set to begin
at 12 noon, June 12.

But even before it begins, sev-
eral hundred people will set out
on a walkathon, leaving from
Vancouver’s Robson Square at
12 noon, Friday, June 11 and ar-
riving at the Peace Arch in time
for the rally. The distance is some
51km and organizers have includ-
ed an overnight stop in Surrey.

| Meeti Arms through legal avenues to get per- which will mark the UN Second Already, Vancouver alderman
| es ee ae mission to use the park facilities Special Session on Disarmament Harry Rankin and Bruce Yorke
| Mainland regional director for on the U.S. side although Ken- (UNSSOD II) and which willalso have announced their intention tc

ee

the parks and recreation branch

a

nedy declared: “‘If they don’t get

coincide with another. massive

See HUNDREDS page 3 |

Citizens

Hydro’'s

subsidize

U.S. sales

— page 3 —