All The News That’s Fit To Confuse
It is unfortunate that the local papers not infrequently print an article of little significance and make it sound as if there is a monumental change taking place, particularly when the article is announced by a misleading headline.
Take, for example, the recent article: City Hall undergoes makeover.Reorganization will include structural overhaul,staff changes.
What structural overhaul would that be, pray tell? Yes indeed,a couple of highly paid General Managers were given a slight change in their responsibilities and the Director of Human Resources was placed onto the senior management/leadership team.These changes were accomplished with one “minor” pay increase (well,we will see about that as the next round of salary increases is announced) so there certainly was no “structural overhaul” that some in the community would like to see.
And then there is the recent scary headline: VIHA introduces daily convalescence fee.New charge will affect many seniors who cannot go directly from the hospital to their own homes after surgery.
This dire warning suggests that many senior citizens are now going to face severe financial stress because they are unable to pay for this $29.40 per day user fee. However the article also points out that “Health authorities have the ability to reduce or waive the fee if the rate is determined a financial hardship for the individual.” And in cases where there are family members available to assist financially, this certainly would be appropriate and expected,otherwise everybody else has to bear the burden.
Wayne Schulstad
Posts and Comments on Nanaimo Governance 
How can we not include the Mayor’s recent announcement that something was in the works that he was going to shortly release the details on, hinting it had to do with the hotel although the few councilors he discussed it with said it had nada to do with a conference hotel and since then we have heard nothing about this non-news which the media has also forgotten about.
The local newspapers are so short on actively following new stories, we get stories that go nowhere and die but are seldom forgotten.
You got that right.I don’t know what to make of the Mayor’s communication style.
Wayne, the point of universal medicare is to share the cost of health care among all citizens. Having to go cap in hand to the hospital administration and ask for relief flies in the face of the principal of universality. No one should have to beg for post surgery care.
Diane, great to hear from you. Your input here would really add to the discussions of Nanaimo municipal politics and would be very welcome.
While I agree that Universal Medicare should be equal (if it is provided), any citizen that is given the required post surgery care be they either seniors or single people, the user fee of $29.40 a day is not anywhere near the high cost of hospitalization. I know that for most couples, the first few days of convalescent care, the other person must take time off work and that is a loss of greater than $29.40 in wages.
At what point is this fee to be charged? Too often people are released from the hospital with little regard to whom can care for them once they reach home and without the proper care, they could end up back where they came from with the added cost of an ambulance.
According to the article, this fee is going to be charged to ANYONE, and is not only seniors.
The makeover at city hall seems to be just make up. This is very unfortunate.
The fee for convalescent care is much more serious. I agree with Diane on this one. We need to find someway to stop this. I’m open to any suggestions.
On a much lighter note:
Nanaimo ranks number 68 out of 179 cities in Canada for “Best Places To Live” according to MoneySense Magazine. This means we are not as good as Yellowknife which is ranked 23 (really?), or Calgary which is 29 (maybe I shouldn’t have moved). But, we’re better then Parksville (in your face, Parksville) at 141, and Surrey at 146 (I could have told them that).
As I understand it, our ranking has increased over the years that MoneySense has been doing this annual evaluation. Great job, Nanaimo. And, Parksville, nice beach.
Nanaimo rocks.
The health care (or disease care) system, while not perhaps actually broke is certainly badly bent.
Charging for convalescent care is just one more way to try and bring more money into an ailing system.
My suggestion won’t be popular, but I would like to see people who don’t actually need the attention of doctors and the ER be charged for wasting valuable resources.
Recently I have had two visits to the ER with either friends or relatives and on both occasions it is obvious many people there, do not need to be there. The same observation can be made at any clinic in town.
Our universal health care system does absolutely nothing to address the abuse and waste of resource inflicted on it by people who need no more than a pat on the head and told everything will be alright.
This universal system we are so proud of does nothing for dental care, or eye care either. I used to be able to get my eyes examined every two years, but not anymore.
The reality is, most if not all of our beloved ‘safety nets’ have serious holes developing in them and governments are simply running out of sources to keep borrowing money to fix them.
I believe in universal medicare but the State (ie:taxpayers) cannot afford to pay for everything,all of the time.
However I would like to address in more detail the matter of seniors who have difficulty paying for the $29.40 per diem for convalescent care.I wonder what percentage of the seniors population this reaches.Is it 5%,10%,3%? I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter because the medical system will waive the fee. Dianne says that no one should have to beg for this and I agree,but a word to the hospital Social Worker should suffice.
What I would like to know,just to advance a point for discussion, is how many of the seniors unable to afford this per diem are in this position because they did not (assuming they were capable of doing so) manage their lives prudently during their pre-senior years so that they would be assured of a retirement reasonably free of financial worry? Did they make a good effort during their prime years of employment to save for their future? Were there vacations to Hawaii, Mexico and Las Vegas instead of contributions to their RRSP? The readers thoughts on this subject would be of great interest.Thanks.
I’m sure Diane would have some very interesting things to say about the principle of universality that has made our social safety net the envy of most of the world (not that it doesn’t have some worrying gaps — how do we justify the shameful child poverty rates in this country?) but I’d be even more interested in her thoughts on the relationship between Council and Senior Staff, the departure of CM Jerry Berry and the yet to be made public details of his severance agreement, an appraisal of the conference centre, the Port Place Mall redevelopment and rezoning applications, economic development, etc.