Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 6, 2000 TERRACE. STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C, « V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432 EMAIL: standard@kermode.net A solution . IT’S CLEAR that the greatest problem with our - health care system is not so much a lack of : Money, doctors, equipment or beds. The greatest ; problem is that we don’t have enough nurses. . They are the bedrock of the system, whether it - is in the community health field to provide home care instead of the more expensive hospital care, in prevention to keep people healthy so they don’t need hospital care in the first place or to take care of people if they do end up in a hospital. The cruel irony of our nursing shortage is that it : wasn’t all that many years ago governments deci- - ded we had too many of them. Nurses’ training ' ‘was cut, nurses were laid off and those that were . graduating couldn’t find jobs. This decision ignored several realities. One is _ that since nursing is a predominantly female pro- _ fession, there weren’t enough new nurses to take ' the place of those who left to have children and to _ raise families. The second is that without a stream . Of new nurses, a bulge of older nurses was cre- : ated. As they move into retirement age, the over- ~ all shortage will get worse. Northwest Community College has a north- ‘ west answer. It wants to train licensed practical * Nurses through a program offered in Terrace. It : also wants to offer the first two years of a Bache- - lor of Science in Nursing program tie in with _ third and fourth years at the University of North- ern British Columbia in Prince George. The idea is to address the shortage which is very acute in the northwest itself and the north in general, Just as importantly, this initiative would meet an age-old and much talked about goal - providing an.éducational’and career opportunity - for local young people to keep them in the north. There is a phenomenal amount of goodwill backing the college’s project from northwestern health care facilities and local governments. This kind of rare unanimity must now be encouraged by private citizens before the opportunity is lost. Take the time to write or call the college with your support. Do the same with Skeena MLA Helmut Giesbrecht and with the Terrace Area Health Council. Only good can come out of this. Joe Clark THE CANADIAN ALLIANCE is angry at Joe Clark for keeping the Progressive Conservative party alive, saying he took away votes and seats from them in last week’s federal election, particu- larly in Ontario. That’s sour grapes. The idea of a democracy is for people to freely choose. If voters thought Mr. Clark was a better campaigner and more effective than Alliance leader Stockwell Day, that’s just the way it is. Perhaps the Alliance should reflect on why it failed in Ontario instead of casting blame elsewhere. PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS/SPORTS: Jeff Nagel NEWS/SPORTS Sarah Zimmerman NEWS/COMMUNITY: Jennifer Lang FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping & Carol McKay CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Carole Kirkaldy ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Bedford, Mark Beaupre & Stacy Swetlikoff TELEMARKETER: Stacy Swetlikoff DARKROOM/COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik & Clate Hallock SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $54.88(+$3.85GST) per year; Seniors $48.62 (+$3.40GST); Out of Province $61.69 (+$4.32GST) Outside of Canada (6 months) $151.60 {+$10.61GST) MEMBER OF ett B.C, AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, a CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION ' Serving the Tarrace and Thomhill area. Publishad on Wednesday of each week al 2210 Clinton Streal, Teiracs, British Cotumbla, YEG 52. Stories, photographs, illustrations, dasigns and typestyle in the Tarrace Standard are the property ai the Copyrigh! holders, Including Cariboo Press {1969} Ltd., Its illustration rapro services and advantising agencies, . Reproduction In whole of in part, without written permission, Is specifically prohibited. Authorized as second-class mail pending the Pos! Otice Dopartment, for payment of postage In cash, 3000 BLUE RIBBON B.C. PAESS COUNCIL Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for thelr time and talents Bad news VICTORIA - Ujjal Dosanjh, the British Columbia Premier, must call an election by June next year. I don't envy him the task, tantamount to setting the date for his government's execution by the Liberal oppasition. li the British Columbia NDP had any faint hopes of regaining the voters’ trust, they were crushed by the results of the federal election. One need not be a rocket scientist or even a political scientist to conclude that the dismal showing in British Co- lumbia of the NDP in last Monday's federal election is in large measure attributable to the public's disillusionment with the provincial NDP gov- ernment. That's why Nelson Riis was trounced in Kamloops, a un- ion-friendly town on whose support he could once depend. That's. why .Svend 3 Robin- son, once considered unbeat- able in his Burnaby-Douglas riding, kept his Canadian Al- liance rival at bay by the slimmest of margins. The reasons for the public's scorn of the provincial New Democrats are manifold, but a few stand out. Topping the list is the fud- get budget affair. Claiming to have balanced two budgets in “FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER a row, then premier, Glen Clark, let his NDP troops to an unexpected victory in 1996. When shortly after the election the government was forced to disclose that rather than having produced modest surpluses, the budgets had racked up sizable deficits, it SOMEWHERE OUT WEST continues for the NDP unleashed .a storm..of public, . wrajh that has not died down. to this day. It wasn't so much the defi- cits per se that enraged. the public but the fact that by all accounts Clark knew the truth and decided to hide it to bols- ter his party's election chances, Then there was the $500 million fast-ferry affair. F still believe that the idea was a good one, but undue haste in - KN its implementation led to so many problems with the pro- ject that it was eventually scrapped and the ferries put on the auction block. Last but not Least, the cri- minal investigation of the for- mer premier's alleged role in the awarding of a casino li- cence in return for getting two sundecks built (again alleged), has also been instrumental in preventing the NDP from mounting a recovery in the polls. Compounding the NDP's problems even more is the fact that its most experienced and high-profile members are not running again. The long and the short of it is: the public has lost all con- fidence in the government and is poised to punish it in the next election, And the punishment will be swift and.cuthless,,.so- ruthless in fact that, democracy maybe ’ ill-served by the outcome. ~~ Some observers predict that ° if an election were held today, the NDP would return to the legislature with only two seats, and I can think of few out- comes that would be more dis- turbing. Parliamentary democracy works best in the interest of the public if the government faces a strong opposition. The SAB Wl weaker the opposition, the more dangerous the govern- ment. The thought Campbell leading a Liberal, speak neo-Socred-Reform gov- ernment, with only a couple of people on the apposition benches is scary because he will interpret such a landslide victory as a mandate to do anything he wants. Is there anything the NDP can do to improve its standing between now and the election? I fear not. Even the recent announce- ment that the last budget really produced a genuine and veri- fied surplus did nothing to change the government's stand- ing in the polls. Dosanjh will probably make one last-ditch effort to improve his party's fortunes by tabling some sort of good-news budget next spring, before calling the election, but it won't make any difference. =~ ss The day the premier goes to Government House to ask Lieutenant-Governor Garde Gardom to dissolve the legisla- ture, he will have signed his party's death warrant, Beyer can be reached at: E-mail: Aubert@coolcom.com; Tel (250) 381-6900; Web http:/www.huberibeyer.com Try a lifeline for senior citizens CHRISTMAS IS the perfect excuse to give an elderly se- nior who has everything a safety device that could save their life in case of a mishap. Even seniors healthy enough to live independently never- theless run the daily risk of a fall which could prove fatal if help is too long coming. At least five seniors we know about would not have been in the news had they had a means of calling for im- mediate help. In Smithers, an 80-year-old couple spent five days locked in their bathroom when the doorknob suddenly failed to work. Five days without food, heat, a comfortable place to sil or lie down, and not even a window to shout from. In another news item, an elderly woman was boiling and egg when she fell to the floor, perhaps from a minor stroke, She was too injured to stand up ar crawl to her phone. Peeie AV V FOREVER! AND _ GROUSE ONLY GEI A COUPLE OF YEARS: eae THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI She was rescued four hours later when the saucepan, which had boiled dry, caught fire. Acrid smoke from the burning pot triggered the smoke alarm. In a similar instance, an 84- year-old stumbled backwards in the living roam of her twelfth floor apartment and fell, hurting herself so that ou" LoRD! Do You 7] KNOW How MANY TIMES TVE HEARD | THAT FROM GROUSE .. she, too, was unable to get up and phone for help. She was rescued many hours laler when an outside window washer no- ticed her and dialled 911. More recently, the 77-year- old owner of severai downtown Vancouver properties fell in the washroom of her office one weckend, and lay on the floor between the toilet and was un- able to move. She stayed there for three days until friends searched for her. Besides being dehydrated, she had possible fractures of her arms and legs. All five seniors might have been rescued within minutes if they had had either Lifeline or a cell phone on their person. Lifeline is a non-profit cam- munity service offering 24 hour a day, seven day a week in- home protection. The senior wears a bution pendant around the neck or on the wrist, even in the bath or shower, where statistically most in-home falls occur, _ : baa ~ OQd.covuilgar " VERTHE PAST $0 YEARS Pla ‘ In case of any distress, the client pushs the button. That calls a central office where they have a file on the senior telling them who has a key to the home, a short list of emer- gency contacts, and some per- tinent medical information. An operator answers the call over the special speakerphone installed in the client’s home and quickly summons appropri- ate help. For Lifeline subscriptions, call 1-800-387-8120. In Van- couver, the hookup fee is $50, the monthly fee $33 While many seniors own cell phones, few carry it on them in a holster, or clipped to belt or walker. Yet, according to Christine Schiller, occupa- tional therapist at St. Vincent's Geriatric Day hospital in Van- couver, many people have been admitted to hospital after Spending the night with the phone “just out of reach”. after a fall. of Gordon pS amittinger ate ents gene te