Lock it up Theft vehicles or items in vehicles can be reduced if owners locked up\NEWS A3 Hear them roar | WESCAR pro-stock racing takes place this weekend at the Terrace Speedwayt\SPORTS B4 class young carvers to a higher plane\COMMUNITY B1 $1.00 pLus 7¢ GST ($2.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area) RURAL DOCTORS will continue to have an edge ever their urban counter- parts through a tentative $392 million deal negotiated last week, It comes in the form of on-call pay — money for physicians who while they are not on duty, have agreed to re- spond if called to a hospital. Local doctors have been getting $10 an hour for 14 hours a day since 2(HK0. Rates were different for other rural and remote places and there was no on-call at ail for urban doctors. The idea of on-call payments for rural doctors was to provide a recruit- ment incentive and to keep doctors in the north. The new agreement eliminates the per hour amount and brings in a lump sum to be divided among a group of doctors sharing on-call duties and ex- tends the principle to include urban physicians. For continuous coverage requiring a doctor to be available by phone within 10 minutes and on-site within 45 min- utes, the amount is $225,000 a year. When divided by the number of hours in a year, the pay works out to $25.68 an hour, more than the $10 an hour for L4 hours a day that’s in place now, says local physician Dr. Geoff Appleton. “It’s not an awfully lot extra, but it is a significant lift for on-call,” said Appleton, who sits on the B.C. Medi- cal Association board. And while on-call payments now apply to.both urban and rural doctors, there’s no reason to suggest that will make it hard to attract or to keep doc- tors in the north, he said. “IF you are referring to GPs (general More inside w Wounds will take time to heal, A2 @ Strike action was limited here, A2 practitioners), it: would be rare for an urban doc to do on call,” Appleton said. “In the Vancouver region, the large hospitals either have staff physicians or salary or physicians in hospitals or work fee for service.” Last week’s tentative deal ended escalating strike action in the south and the prospect of government legis- lation to end the dispute. Physicians in Terrace will continue to receive 14 per cent northern isola- lion premium on top of their normal Medical Services Plan billings. As well, general practitioners re- ceive a lump sum of $21,000 and spe- cialists $26,500 a year to stay in Ter- race. The lump sums and on-call pay- ments were brought in here along with _ the on-call money in 2000 to match incentives introduced for Prince George doctors who said they needed more money to either attract physi- cians or to stay in the community. The $392 million a year deal is retroactive to April 1, 2001 and is good for three years. That’s on top of billings which last year nudged the $2 billion level. Rural doctors,.as well as all others elsewhere, get a general fee increase of 11.2 per cent, dating back to April 1, 2001. Northern docs keep income edge Some of the retro pay has already been sent out despite the ongoing fee dispute of the past months, The fee increases make up $185 million of the $392 million package with the rest of the money going to on- call payments, money for salaried physicians and those working under specific contracts and to help finance increased costs brought on by more people needing to see physicians. An average fee for service peneral practilioner was billing out $200,000 a year before the dispute began. In the Terrace area, with the fee in- crease, the 14 per cent premium add- on, the annual retention bonus and the increased on-call payments, that amount could now amount to more than $270,000 a year. Doctors do cover office expenses with their billings. Cont’d Page Al6 ground in Jack Pine Flats last week JAKE PENNER’s business of 27 years was burned to the surance but he does want to rebuild Copper Mountain Cedar Products. It employed nine people. JOANNA WONG PHOTO . Penner does not have in- Mill owner eyes new start By JOANNA WONG THE OWNER OF a cedar shake mill de- stroyed by fire last week says he wants to re- build. “We're going to try and rebuild once the mess is cleaned up,” said Jake Penner the day after a May 29 fire burned his Copper Mcuntain Cedar Products mill in Jack Pine Flats to the ground. Penner, who has had the business for 27 years, said he had no insurance. “It?s a hard day,” said Jake Penner. “I don’t know what to say.” The mill employed nine people, ; Fire officials estimate approximately $500,000 in damage was done. It was one of the largest fires to take place in the area in the past few years. The blaze completely de- stroyed several buildings, mill equipment and a forklift. An investigation team has determined that the blaze most likely started from sparks from a waste burner being blown about by shifting wind gusts the afternoon of May 29. Penner says he discovered the fire after work at approximately 6:30 p.m. Both of Penner’s own emergency fire pumps proved useless, a8 one pump lost power and the other remained trapped in the burning mill. Penner could only watch helplessly until the Thornhill Volunteer Fire Department ar- rived on scene at approximately 6:40 p.m. “I sincerely thank the Thornhill Fire De- partment for saving some inventory,” said Penner. In total, 29 firefighters from Thornhill fought the fire, with two men sustaining minor injuries. “The fire was under control by about 10 p.m. and we were on scene until 12 a.m.” said Thornhill Assistant Chief Michael Moore. The Terrace Fire Department sent a team of five men who also assisted in bringing - the blaze under control. The B.C, Forest Service was called in to help extinguish a secondary fire on a log deck located on the same property several hundred meters away. “We were concerned. about fire spreading through the forest,” said Steve Westby of the forest service. true to his By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN KAREN and Darrell Brown didn’t plan on adopting a kitten until a little grey bundle of fur quite literally fell into their lives. Darrel was in his workshop behind the couple’s Thornhill home when he disco- vered a wild cat had a litter of kittens in the ceiling. Somehow two of those kittens fell nearly 12 feet from their home in the ceiling landing behind an alr compressor May 7. The larger of the two kittens ran out only to be caught in the jaws of the Brown’s visiting son’s two large dogs. “They grabbed her and that..was the end of her,” said Karen. Brown. Kitten’s experiences new name “Everybody was crying — it was horrible.” Soon after, a loud mewing came from behind the machine. “They found this wonderful little runty, grey ball of fuzz,” said Brown. “Hence the name Lucky because he’s pretiy damn lucky to be alive.” Brown says their new little bundle of - energy definitely has.a wild streak and frequently gets-into mischief. When the kitten, who Brown estimates to be about two months old now, pets into trouble he gets a whole new name - Lucky Lucianno. . -.“Lucky Lucianno was a gangster, so I figure he must have some gangster blood in him,” Brown said laughing, ne JUST over two months old, little Lucky Lucianno has already used up two of his nine lives. Union nixes recruit scheme IT’S GOING to be harder for northern and rural places such as Terrace to recruit nurses from overseas. That’s because the B.C. Nurses’ Union (BCNU) has pulled out of a program which granted one-year work visas to foreign nurses. The program, run by the federal government, allows workers into the country if no Canadians can fill job va- cancies. In the case of nurses, @ visa was granted once the BCNU was convinced it would not be at the expense of a Canadian nurse. But now, with southern health authorities closing or changing health care facilities, the union says there’s a growing number of laid off nurses. Until those nurses are found jobs, the union has stopped giving visa approvals. “The fact is we're certainly seeing the issuing of pink slips, not so much in the Northern Health Authority area, but certainly in the lower mainland,” says Leanne Mal- thus, a Smithers nurses and northwest BCNU representa- tive. “We have to protect our members and ensure their tights are protected.” “It would be wrong for us to open the door knowing full well there are nurses laid off,” Malthus added. While layoffs are only taking place in the south for now, Malthus said the same will happen up north once beds in Hazelton, Kitimat and the Queen Charlotte Is- lands are cut back. At the same time, the provincial government has eli- minated an agency which matched up laid off health care workers with vacant positions and assisted them in either retraining or moving to new jobs. Without that kind of help, Malthus said, nurses and health care professionals who are laid off have no place to go to find out if there are vacancies, The BCNU decision has put a halt to some efforts of Mills Memorial Hospital to bring in foreign-trained | nurses, says nursing director Mare Petrick. One foreign trained nurse got union approval just prior to it pulling out but others, including ones from Austra- lia, New Zealand and the Phillipines are caught up be- cause of the situation. : Also affected by the no-visa edict is a group of Filipi- no nurses in Libya who have been trying to come to Ter- race for nearly two years. Petrick does expect the union to eventually lift its no- visa approval decree once the nursing employment si- tuation becomes much clearer. ‘She is happy that another program, called the Pravin- cial Nominee Program (PNP), does not require BCNU approval when an employer makes a job offer to. a forei- gn-trained nurse. “Two of the four nurses we want from Australia and New Zealand are through the PNP program,” said Pe- trick. “It’s really up to the nurse to choose.” No further action in pot plant seizure TERRACE RCMP say they aren’t arresting anyone after 200 marijuana plants were seized from a home near the downtown core downtown May 23. Members of the Terrace RCMP drug section said they uncovered a sophisticated indoor hydroponic marijuana grow operation. Police seized 200 mature plants which they say were already in the budding stage. They also seized what they call a significant amount of electrical equipment from the home. ne The plants were found packed into a single room of the home, police said. ; Drug sectlon officers Cnst. Mike Hacker and Cnst. Bruce Lofroth said they can not divulge why no action is being laken and that the investigation has been conctu- ed. . ; They did say people were living in the home at the time of the rald, 4