Thank You, Ontario Premier Mike Harris

As Chris said yesterday after I called Telehealth, "Thank you, Mike Harris. There are no beds in the hospital system available for you, but at least we can tell you you need one."

Harris, BTW, put money into Telehealth, a service staffed 24h a day with health care professionals who can give you sound medical advice. This is very useful when your baby has a fever and you don't know whether you should take them to Emerg and hang around for 4 hours waiting to be seen, only to be told it's due to teething.

He also cut health care and education spending. This has resulted in overflowing Emerg rooms, overworked staff, cutbacks in services, no beds for patients who need them, and an exodus of health care workers to the States, resulting in more understaffing and worse health services. Why an exodus? Because the understaffing is too stressful, and there's no money to give proper services, and health care worker's salaries have also been slashed, and, in the case of new doctors and nurses, the cutbacks in higher education have resulted in higher and higher debtloads upon exiting school. It's not easy to pay back >$150 in debts on the salaries currently being offered. And the States beckon with much higher salaries, lower taxes, better working conditions, and more respect for physicians.

Why am I going on about this?

Because my family doc put in an urgent request for me to see the gyne guy right away. And the gyne guy replied that he would be happy to bump me up the list as far as he could. September 5th.

My previous appointment was for August 29th. When I mentioned this, I was told, "Oh, good! Well, keep that one, then."

Thanks, Harris. No, really. Thanks.

Holy Crap

Literally.

Ban gay marriages: Pope

Gays hit back at Vatican

People are idiots.

Later Edit:

As if we needed further evidence:

"United Way Charity Suspends Scout Grants Over Gays"

I was so impressed that the Cradle of Liberty Council defied the national ban on gay leaders, especially because they're the third-largest council in the States. I shouldn't have been surprised that they wouldn't be allowed to get away with it. Here's a quote from the article:

"The Cradle of Liberty Council, which serves 87,000 youths in Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs, defied national leaders in May by adopting its own nondiscrimination policy toward gays.

But the group later rescinded the policy and agreed to oust an openly gay scout after the Irving, Texas-based national council threatened to revoke its charter."

So the United Way, which has an antidiscrimination policy, has decided to suspend their grant.

Makes me glad that what we've got Daniel involved in apparently has the following credo:

"Scouting is a world wide, multi cultural movement. We welcome people to membership regardless of gender, race, culture, religious belief, sexual orientation or economic circumstances. Youth members are strongly influenced by the behaviour of adults. We need to be sensitive to the traditions and beliefs of all people and to avoid words or actions which "put down" anybody." From Scouts Canada. Duty of Care, February 2001, CODE OF CONDUCT FOR ADULTS