Thursday, February 23, 2012

Re: Councillors refuse amphitheatre plan - February 22, 2012

Read the article here

To the editor of the Sudbury Star,
Published February 29, 2012

So, in addition to the ill thought out vendor area, the new Grace Hartman Amphiteatre does not have enough fixed seating to attract major events? I looked back at a news article in a competing publication from April 1, 2010 and found that " Paul Loewenberg, artistic director for Northern Lights Festival Boreal, said for his festival, a larger amount of seating would be necessary to be able to attract higher quality performers." I also noted that councillor Ted Callaghan " fought for another 400 hard seats since that is what he said user groups wanted".

But architect Paul Castellan indicated that more seating "would compromise the look of the site" and Brian Amott, a senior partner with consultant Novita, said "most user groups, including the larger festivals, were supportive of what seating was proposed"

Where is Novita today, now that larger festivals don't want to rent the venue due to unsatisfactory seating? Why are we once again hung out to dry because the words of an out of town consultant meant more than those of local people who know the issues? What good is a nice looking site if no one wants to use it and we end up funding it out of tax dollars?

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Re: 'It's a bad idea to cut beds' - February 14th, 2012

Read the article here

To the editor of the Sudbury Star,
Published February 15, 2012

It is nice of Health Sciences North to put the statistics regarding Alternative Level Of Care patients in hospital on their website. In six weeks, the Memorial Site (aka Functional Assessment and Outcome Unit) will close half of its sixty beds. Checking the numbers today (February 15), I see that the Memorial Site is almost full with 56 ALC patients while the main hospital has 63. They claim no surgeries have been cancelled so far this week but thirteen patients in the ER are awaiting beds.

Despite all the claims about home care and solutions being put in place, it is obvious that the hospital remains overloaded at this time. And this says nothing about the people who need ALC services but remain on a waiting list. My impression is that our government health care bureaucrats and politicians have lots of talk but no plan. From the quotes I see, they seem to be hoping that these people will just go away. It will be interesting to see what the figures look like on April 1st.

Ontario citizens who supported health care through their taxes during their working lives deserve more than this now that they require an alternative level of care. Moreover, the rest of us should have the full benefit of the downsized hospital those short-sighted moguls of health foisted on us.