November 6th, 2024

How are seniors supposed to live without a doctor?


By Letter to the Editor on August 26, 2021.

Editor:
To Lethbridge East:
How are seniors and families supposed to live a healthy lifestyle and thrive in this province when due to your party policies you are driving our doctors and health professionals out of the province?
We have just lost another two doctors from the Bigelow Fowler clinic here in Lethbridge, leaving thousands of patients with no access to medical care or medical access to prescription medications or care other than the excessive wait time at the emergency room at the hospital during the pandemic that your party seems to deny exists.
Do you have access to a family physician and are they accepting new senior patients or do you have any lists for doctors accepting seniors so that we can actually get care to live the rest of our lives in reasonable conditions and comfort?
How would you like it if members of your family started to die or suffer needlessly due to a lack of access to medical care?
If you had a spine, you would stand up for your constituents who you were sworn to represent to the best of your ability and end the madness that your leadership has brought upon us. Looking forward to your response on access to your doctors.
Gary Millington
Lethbridge

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Les Elford

Thank you Mr. Millington for your comments. I agree,100% losing a trusted, competent medical professional is a significant and traumatic event. Especially for seniors. If you are medically compromised even more so.

If you are classified as having complex medical needs, you may not get a doctor to take you as a new patient, because he or she is not compensated properly/adequately for the amount of time and expertise required.

Would you blame a doctor for that? when you pay $50 to $100 for a callout fee for a plumber or or $150 /hour to a car dealership for labor expenses.

Health is critical, without it you have nothing, as one gets older it becomes more obvious. Medical professionals deserve to be compensated appropriately.

MSN recently identified the occupations with the highest burn out rates. Listed in order they are; Physician, Nurse, Retail and fast-food worker, Social worker, Police officer, Air traffic controller, Emergency response worker, Certified public accountant. It’s interesting 75% of the jobs are funded and paid by government. Human Resource professionals will tell you people leave jobs for a multitude of reasons; but most commonly one does not leave a job or profession simply because they don’t like it. They leave because of; inept micro-management, bullying and a toxic work environment.
The next time you interact with one of the above, I would simply ask you be patient, kind show them some compassion, respect. After all they are human too and are just trying to get through the day like we all are.

It appears Mr. Kenney is MIA (again) just as the Covid -19 – Delta variant seems to be increasing. The recently elected PC government in Nova Scotia has committed to supporting the health care system not dismantling it. If Nova Scotia (a have – not ) province can support health care and the build up of the medical system how is it that Alberta is unable too?

I have recently begun to suspect we no longer have a government running the province of Alberta. I suspect we have a cult. I know that is harsh, rude, ignorant and I really do not enjoy saying it. I don’t personally know Mr. Neudorf, Mr. Kenney or any of the other elected MLA’s in Alberta. They all may be fine people deep down.

 I am not sure taking or making this personal serves any purpose. Therefore the point I am trying to make is; It appears there is something seriously systemically wrong with our current system of governance at all levels.

Some of you may be old enough to remember the “Jonestown Massacre” occurred on November 18, 1978, when more than 900 members of an American cult called the Peoples Temple died in a mass suicide-murder under the direction of their leader Jim Jones (1931-78).

In the 1970s, following negative media attention, the powerful, controlling preacher moved with some 1,000 of his followers to the Guyanese jungle, where he promised they would establish a utopian community. On November 18, 1978, U.S. Representative Leo Ryan, who had gone to Jonestown to investigate claims of abuse, was murdered along with four members of his delegation. That same day, Jones ordered his followers to ingest poison-laced punch while armed guards stood by. I understand 33 people survived and were able to tell the story.

I feel sad, and bad with what I am about to say, but I feel compelled, I feel I must speak my mind and hope (and pray) something productive comes from it.

I sense innocent Albertan’s are being forced to “drink the UCP Kool-aide” (or the UCP agenda, mandate, ideology, propaganda) forced on us daily through media) and that for most UCP MLA’s tragically it’s too late; they have already have drunk it.

For me; No thank you I don’t want to drink the “Kenney Kool-Aide”
Obviously it’s not going to harm me; forced to listen to the UCP propaganda. But I suspect the implementation of their agenda will do more harm than good for the people of Alberta. There has got to be another way, but sadly that’s one of the underlying characteristics of a cult; They appear to be only interested in “their way”
Respectfully;

Dennis Bremner

I make no judgements only to include this and I quote:
Alberta doctors have become the best paid in Canada, recording a gross average income of $365,765 last year that edged them ahead of counterparts in Ontario and Saskatchewan, new national statistics show.
and this
https://www.livingin-canada.com/salaries-for-registered-nurses.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20figures,Quebec%20at%20%2433.50%20per%20hour.
so I do not believe this has anything to do with pay.

Last edited 3 years ago by Dennis Bremner
grinandbearit

Good point Old School. The AB doctors must have lost a lot of IQ points since med school to be leaving AB for worse jobs in other jurisdictions. Dummies.

buckwheat

Too bad for seniors. Doctors are leaving for other locations in Alberta. The are not leaving the province. They are leaving the crap show your lovingly NDP Spearman and fab five created. Hey if I was making 365,700k a year, would i move to Saskatchewan for less money. Doubtful. Would I move to Camrose for less of druggy S show. Probably.