PUBLIC INQUIRY DEMANDED

Grave hospital crisis hits Island

By ERNIE KNOTT

VICTORIA — The myth that
Social Credit policy is *every-
thing for the people,” especially
in the social welfare and hospi-
tal. field, was pretty well ex-
ploded here this week,

An acute shortage of beds and
nursing staff has been develop-
ing all over Vancouver Island,
and this at a time when some
hospitals like Jubilee and St,
Joseph’s in Victoria have 168

beds not in use, with a waiting
list of admissions of one thous-
and,

A quick check on the situation
on Vancouver Island shows:

* Victoria—168 beds not in use
with a waiting list of 1,000 enda
shortage of nurses,

* Duncan—Overcrowding, with
patients in corridors some time
ago, and a strong demand for a
local hospital at Lake Cowichan.

‘Canada should press
for end to cold war’

t a meeting of the National

Executive Committee of the
Communist Party of Canada on
November 5, the following state-
-ment was adopted on the U.S.
elections:

“Democratic Canadians like
the people everywhere welcome
the decisive electoral defeat in-
flicted on Goldwater and his re-
actionary war-like policies by the
American people on November 3,
By their vote the American people
have not only demonstrated their
opposition to reaction and for the
full equality of the Negro people;
they have equally expressed their
desire for policies of peace, dis-
armament, trade and friendship -
with all countries,

“It is to be hoped that the John-
son administration will draw the
necessary conclusions from the
mandate given it by the American
people in support of peaceful co-
existence by moving forward on

the disarmament front, through
agreements to end all tests, pre-
vent the spreading of nuclear
weapons, no matter how dis-
guised, and by banning the A and
H bombs, by recognizing China,

_ Cuba and the German Democratic

Republic and withdrawing U,S,
troops from South Viet Nam as
well as other areas, and working
for negotiated settlements lead-
ing to a durable and lasting peace,

“Failure to act that way would
deny the essence for which the
American people voted and of
what the peoples everywhere ex-
pect of the Johnson administra-
tion following the elections,

“Now is the time for new in-
itiatives and new actions to ai-
vanc> the cause of peace and end
the cold war, The Canadian
people, we are sure, would want
the Canadian government iopress
ior such.actioa both in and out-
side the United Nations,”

* Nanaimo—one whole floor in
the new hospital not in use and
the Hospital Board proposing to
tear down the old hospital forthe
benefit of a local real estate
shark, while most people want it
to be turned into a much needed
chronic care centre for elderly
people,

* Port Alberni—A ‘ard fight
being waged by a local group for
improved child care facilities
and qualified nurses on staff,

* Campbell River — Strong
pressure for more beds,

The whole issue blew wide open
this last week when Dr. Whitely,
chief of medical staff at Vic-
toria’s Jubilee, publicly charged
that Health Minister Eric Martin
is “a little dictator, not qualified
for the job,”

“Give it to me straight, Doc...
what do ! have? Is it something
I can afford?”

(From THE LATHER, journal of the
Wood, Wire and Metal Lathers’ Inter-
national Union, USA).

Whitely’s blast came as a re-
sult of doctors’ frustration at
being given the run around by
Martin, who has been refusing
to meet with medical people here
to discuss the situation.

Whitely, whois very outspoken,
referréd to Martin this way: #It
is ridiculous for a community's
health services to be handled by
some of these nitwit politicians,”

Many people like Whitely are
wondering why there should be a
shortage of beds and staff when
the five percent sales tax (ear-
marked for hospitals) brought
in $105 million last year, and
when Premier Bennett has $300
million to spend on a road to
the Yukon, :

The hospital board says the
problem is not money because
the BCHIS payment of $24.30 per
patient per day is adequate, What
is the probiem, then? Dr. White-
ly pins it down to two main rea-
sons,

Firstly, he says that the BCHIS
provides a certain number of
beds for each hospital through a
formula “based on absolute mini-
mum requirements” and thisnig-
gardly policy is bound to lead to
a bed shortage,

Secondly, he says that there
is a shortage of nurses bec2use
the provincial government has
stalled on approving plans for
enlarging nurse training facili-
ties even though the municipali-
ties in Greater Victoria made a

grant of $140,000 for this pur
pose in 1962 and an anonymous
private donor was willing to P

up a further $100,000.

Martin has stalled becaus?
these local grants would have !
be matched by provincial and
federal grants, Meanwhile—a bie
shortage of nurses,

While provincia! a :thoriil??
otis volities with people’s wel
fare, what are the sick and elde!”
ly who need permanent hosp!
care doing in the face of this
Situation? i

In the Victoria area they *
fast becoming the victims of
vate hospitals, which are spriné
ing up like mushrooms under the
benevolent eye of a healthm a
ter who no doubt feels that p20?!
in this “do-it-yourself” fashi®
will take the pressure off
BCHIS and Bennett’s coffers.

Remaining true to his colot®
Martin battled against a resoll
tion at the Socred convention
week which called for medi
similar to Alberta’s plan.
takes a postion similar to Gol
water’s on all such question
and has no regrets for his p0
tion,

People here are now peginning
to demand a public inquiry i”
the whole issue and Martin 18
manoeuvering to escape that bY
appointing a committee of local
hospital administrators (his °
men) to investigate and bring i"
a report some time in the future:

Racists in Rhodesia deeply worried

By SAM RUSSELL
Daily Worker Foreign Editor

hey are worried men in the

buildings surrounding the
blossom -laden jacaranda trees
and the fancy fountains playing
in Cecil Square, heart of Salis-
bury, capital of Rhodesia,

They know that when the chips
are down the future of the coun-
try will be decided not by a lot
of loud-mouthed racialists in-
spired by Dr, Verwoerd’s South
African racialists, but by the
African people of Rhodesia
backed as they will be by their
brothers in Zambia, Malawi,
Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Kenya,
Ghana, Nigeria and every other
independent African country,

Equally important, an over-
whelming majority in the United
Nations have time and again made
it clear that they are determined

‘to prevent the transfer of sove-
reign rights to Rhodesia so long

as the territory’s government

refused universal adult suffrage
to Africans and maintains white
minority control,

For years now, Sir Roy Wel-
ensky has tried to convince Brit-
ish public opinion that he and his
friends were holding the fort of
“civilization,” by which he meant
white supremacy, onthe Zambesi
River against the “uncivilized”
African hordes, :

Mr, Smith has underlined this
attitude by his declaration that
there would not be any African
majority government of Rhodesia
in his lifetime, and as he is a
fairly young man, this means in

the next 30 years,

Even British and U,S, big busi-
ness has realized that Cecil
Rhodes is dead, and that if it
attempts to maintain power by the
old means, it is doomed to ex-
tinction in Africa,

* Total investment of British big
business in the former Central
African Federation of Northern
Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and
Nyasaland was over 100 million
pounds, and all of this and more
would be endangered ifMr,Smith
and his men went ahead with a
unilateral declaration of inde-
pendence,

If the measures envisaged in
Mr, Wilson’s statement were put

into effect it could mean as a first

step a ban on British imports of
Rhodesian tobacco, which would
ruin Rhodesian tobacco farmers,

And if Mr, Smith tried to re-
taliate by cutting off power from
the Kariba Dam station to Zam-
bia’s copper industry on the other
side of the frontier, then British
and American firms who at the
moment get profits of about 100
million pounds a year will be in
danger,

That is why firms like Anglo-
American, Rhodesian Selection
Trust, Tanganyika Concessions,
Dunlops, Fords, the B.M,C, and
others with interests in Zambia
as well as Rhodesia are ringing
the alarm bells,

But most important of all is
the fact that if Mr, Smith went

Salisbury, capital of Rhodesia, formerly Southern Rhodesia, where white rulers are trying to hold back the tide

of African freedom.

ahead, the African people of Rho-
desia would swing into action with
a campaign of militant action
which would force Mr, Smith to
mobilize every able-bodied white,

The trade union movement
would cripple the country with a
general strike, and the economy
could not stand that for long,

The leader of the African Rail-
way Workers’ Union has already
warned that “unconstitutional ac-
tion by the Rhodesian government
will create disaster and chaos—
the Africans willnever recognize
such independence,”

Mr, Smith must be stopped not
only by making it clear what will
happen under the present un-
democratic Constitution,

Britain's. Labor Government
should now complete the Wilson
statement by making it clear that
a new Constitution must be drawn
up with the participation of Rho-
desia’s African leaders now held
in prison by Mr, Smith—a Con-
stitution based on the principle
of universal adult suffrage, one
man, one vote,

Now that Mr, Smith has been
forced to climb down, at least
partially, it must be made crystal
clear to him and his hot-headed
supporters that Britain regards
the present undemocratic con-
stitution imposed by the Tory
Colonial Secretary Mr, Sandys,
as dead as a dodo,

The present emergency regu-
lations under which the African
townships around Salisbury and

elsewhere are under a state @
armed police terror must be
ed, and all the African leader
held in jail and detention ™¥
be released,

Once released, the Atric®
leaders must be given every rig
to form their own political P
ties and organization, with *
freedom to carry ott their # fi
tivities free from _ police
government interference.

Only by such measures wh
Rhodesia's four million Africa
get the assurance that Brita”
new Labor Government mé id
to end, once and for all, the °
and discredited colonial reg!
based on white supremacy “sal
the disregard of every ele! -
of democracy,

November 13, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page