Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 8, 1999 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 Fix it, Now HERE’S A perfect example on why northwest health care needs to be reformed. Heads of the re- gion’s local health councils met Friday, Nov. 26 to discuss the threat of Terrace doctors to refer out-of-town patients away from Mills Memorial Hospital. A promised press release on the results of that meeting was finally released six days later. Considering that the doctors’ threat prompted much anguish in Terrace and drew criticism else- where, a clear statement from those in charge of the various community health councils should have come much, much sooner, The stated reason was that all those at the meet- ing had to approve the release and its contents. Now this is not so much to blame those in- volved. They are, after all, working with what they’ve got. And what they’ve got isn’t working. That’s the point. Approximately $80 million a year is being spent on northwest health care, a sum that works out to $1,000 and change for each person living up here. Instead of a cohesive Management structure to ensure that each of these precious dollars is spent correctly and wisely, we instead have a series of local health councils who each have a mandate to take care of their own hospitals and services. Without a regional authority, the inevitable hap- pens as those focal health councils first want to ensure the needs of their own people are taken care of first. The concept of sharing and regionali- zation of services is not built into this manage- ment structure. In the absence of any type of regional manage- ment structure, the role of providing regional sét:” vices has falléir to the doctors through formal-or informal agreements. They’ve built a system whereby patients are already being cared for in their hometowns or are being sent elsewhere and where specialists, in particular, travel around the northwest. The problem is there hasn’t been an accompa- nying regional administrative and budget struc- ture in place to either manage this system or to al- locate monies where needed to support these re- gional services. In part, this explains the budget problems at — Mills Memorial Hospital. Because the great ma- jority of specialists live in Terrace, the hospital has played host to regional services without bud- get adjustments to reflect this circumstance. It’s not that regional services are a new or revo- lutionary idea, The provincial government, after all, made much in the early to mid-1990s about changing the way health care was to be managed. That resulted elsewhere in regional health care au- thorities. If anybody is looking for a local example of a regional approach, note that the Terrace and Kiti- mat school districts were merged. If it was done in education, why not for health care? PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rad Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS Jeff Nagel s NEWS/SPORTS: Christiana Wiens NEWS/COMMUNITY: Alex Hamilton FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Carole Kirkaldy ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Bedford, Mark Beaupre & Stacy Swellikoff TELEMARKETER: Stacy Swetlikoff DARKROOM/COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur AD ASSISTANT: Julic Davidson, Kulwant Kandola SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: 1998 WINNER 208 TRAINING FRDGRAM VN! eo mal 'D LIKE To BECOME. FERRY RA NAN, $57.30 per year; Seniors $50.75; Out of Province $64.39 Outside of Canada (6 months) $158.25 (ALLPRICES INCLUDE GST) MEMBER OF B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION. fr. CANADIAN COMMUAITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION @ CN AND B.C, PRESS COUNCIL Sarving the Terrace and Thombill area. Published on Wednesday of ach weak al 9210 Clinton Street, Terrace, Briish Catumbla, VEG 5R2. Stories, pholographs, illustrations, dasigns and typestyies In the Terrace Slandard eva the property of the copyright holders, including Cariboo Prass (1969). Ltd., its illustration tepro services and advertising Roproductien in whole or in part, withoul Written permission, Is spectlically prohibited. Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Offica Department, for payment of postage in cash. Special thanks to all gur contributors and correspondents for thelr time and talents commurart Newsexreas a yee eabep Wackiness way down in Waikiki WAIKIKI - The weather is the same as ever, warm. The scenery the same, blue ocean, palm trees, white beaches, The people are the sanie, at least in Waikiki, the world's most famous vacation’ para- dise, Life, as befits a place where the temperature is 30 degrees during the day and no cooler than 75 at night, is ea- sy-going. The tourists don't ap- pear to have a-care-in the world, Behind the facade that Ha- _ Waii in general and Waikiki in particular present-to. the world, however, is another face, this one more real, But unless you read the newspaper, which most people on vacation don't, you have no idea that the world you move in-as a tourist is carefully shielded from ‘that other, more realistic world. The day we arrived, Hawaii | “buried, the ‘seven. Xerox em-, ployees’ sslain ‘by a disgruntled co-worker, A closely- -knit com- munity, all of Hawaii was still in shock. In a moving tribute to the slain men, Glenn Sex- ton, vice-president: of Xerox Hawaii, thanked citizens- for their outpouring. of love and affection, “Nowhere else would we have been wrapped. in such» Aloha,” he said. Not unexpectedly, the tra- pedy renewed the debate over gun control, with the Honolulu Advertiser leading the charge in an editorial. ; For days, the paper ran tet- ters to the editar both for and FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER against gun control. One read- er wrote that wasn't about to be “disarmed by a bunch of journalism majors.” Another presented a unique analogy in support for his position in fa- vour of gun control. - The moment the first Ha- waiian is bitten by. a snake Hawai has: no. snakes), he, a Sald,, the state. ‘should issue, f every «resident a “snake. and order them:io wear the-critters concealed on their person. If guns, as the gun lobby claims, don't -kill’ people, snakes: wouldn't either, he concluded. If [1 hadn't the Advertiser delivered .to my hotel room every. morning, I-also’ would >have missed: one hell-of a brouhaha, involving charges of racism, not all that unfamiliar back home. : . Because of Hawaii's unique makeup — il's the only state that used to bea kingdom and has a fairly active sovereignty movement, there's an Office of Hawaiian Affairs, one of PR spending is YOU KNOW a public body is on the ropes, battered and bleeding profusely when they hire a public relations person to write nice things about what they're doing to divert. -atten- tion from what they're’ not doing. In the 1980s the Terrace school board forked out scarce education dollars hiring a spin doctor so trustees could read complimentary things about themselves. Now it’s the Ter- race health council. who feels criticized, misunderstood, un- appreciated. - The school board's venture into seif- -promotion failed in at least three ways. First, calling in a public re- lations person was a‘self-in- dulgent: waste of. money that would have been better spent in a-classroom. While .the po- lished press releases stroked irustees’ egos, they did noth- ing to sway public opinion. THROUGH BIFOGALS. CLAUDETTE SANDECKI WONT. Won7” Those who were critical and suspicious of the board re- mained so. Why? Because - and this is the . second failure - promotional material generated’ by the board itself lacked credibility, To quote Franklin P. Adams, _ who lived from'1881 to 1960, “Nothing's so apt to under- mine your contidence ina pro- duct as knowing that the com- “news, “hecauise she, was Weoing qneRe ! SEE? whose trustees, a Mililani Trusk, made some very un- complimentary remarks about Daniel Inouye, a U.S, Senator from Hawaii. Trusk has a lot of native blood in her and is a strong ad- yocale of sovereignty. Inouye is of Japanese origin and doesn't think much of Hawaii separating from the U.S. When Trusk called Inouye publicly a “one-armed bandit,” the fight was on. The senator lost an arm in the fighting shortly after the D-Day inva- sion in Normandy. Then again, he stripped a ring off a dead French woman's finger during the U.S. Army’s advance, something he has officially ad- mitted and regretted. Not satisfied with the effect of her one-armed bandit re- mark, Trusk upped the ante a few days later by telling the ., slaff of Office of Hawaiian Af- ‘fatrs, to wateh the, six, woelack the kick his yellow ass.” The. controversy continues to rage. a "Other news of possible in- terest to the government back home includes a successful battle by Hawaii Governor Ben Cayetano against the oil com- panies over alleged price-fix- ing. So far, three smaller com- ‘panies have caved in and. agreed to and out-of-court set- tlement that has them pay $15 million dollars compensation to the state without admitting guilt. Now Cayetano is training his sights on the five biggest oi! companies. And thea, like governments everywhere, Cayetano ‘an- nounced that rather than lower- ing gas prices if the major law suit is successful, he may have to raise them. What is interesting is that no howls of derision followed that bit of nasty news. “Even though there is a two-party sys- tem, legislators rarely vote - along party lines. Jt appears that everyone, including the Advertiser, sees the logic of the governor's announcement, even though it eludes me com- pletely. And then there is a certain ‘Honolulu councilman who helps make bylaws and then brakes them. John Henry: Felix is doing as bit of moonlighting by conducting a thriving wed- ding business at his beachfront home. Now, according to an or- dinance which be. himself Towed’ ie Adit; which’ doesn't seem to. deter him.’ Despite threats of big fines and put-off neighbours, the stretched limos carrying mostly Japanese wedding parties, keep driving up to his home in an exclusive residential area. oO This time, the Advertiser weighed in with a stern admo- nition, urging Felix: to stop his nefarious and illegal business activities. The outcome is still uncertain. And now, with your permis- sion, I'l get off this computer, which the hotel graciously and at an $8-an-hour charge provi- ded, and get back into the sun. - misdirected mercial selling it has been ap- proved by the company that makes it.” Third, a newspaper is a bu- siness. It survives on advertis- ing revenue. newspaper ta publish a public relations handout word for ward, free, is asking it to shortchange. its bottom ‘line. Consequently p.r. material usu- ally ends up in the round file, otherwise known as a waste- basket. If the hospital's acting CEO feels he’s already too busy to communicate with the .media and: the: public, -wait. till TV, radio, and newspaper reporters phone. him for clarification, ‘or to probe deeper into certain p.r. stalements, The CEO may dis- cover what he’s calling “busy” may actually be a lull. Reporters are trained to see - through self-promotional sweet . talk. They bristle when expec- ted to print p.r, good-news at To expect a no charge, and exactly as it might appear in other publica- tions. The CEO should expect a lot of phone calls from media. Terrace health council may consider $10,000 a pittance, well worth spending to assure “getting a fair shake” in the public’s opinion, Yet to someone whose mo- ther died becatise no surgean was available to care for her, or to a family. whose son jour- neyed by ambulance from Kiti- mat to Prince Rupert for an ap- pendectomy, that $10,000 might appear as- a monstrous misplacement of. regional dol- lars. Trying to convince those families otherwise could leave the health council in urgent need of medical care.’ . As Will Rogers so neatly put it, “Let advertisers spend the same amount of maney im- proving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it,” YoU HAVE NO : WILLPOWER /!