The CAMROSE BOOSTER, January 26, 2021 – Page 10
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Grateful for our health system
I’m old enough to remember when “health care insurance” became a public service in Alberta. I remember raging controversy about whether that was a good idea. Some people were concerned about “socialism” (a dirty word in Alberta) or “nannystate” or that governments might override the judgment of medical professionals. At various times since then, I’ve appreciated that when any one of us becomes ill, medical care is available to us, mostly without creating a financial crisis for the individual or the family. As someone who has seldom faced medical challenges, I didn’t realize what a source of security that is. However, In the past year and a half, I’ve stopped taking that blessing for granted. It got personal. Last year, one of my descendants had a mysterious chronic condition that was hard to diagnose. She had access to a variety of tests (“every test known to man,” she said). Medical experts were eventually able to identify the problem. Yes, it’s chronic and yes, it’s something she’ll likely need to manage for the rest of her life. But at that time and now, she has access to all the medical expertise and diagnostic facilities that are needed. ***
A few days before Christmas, my youngest descendant was rushed in an ambulance to an Edmonton hospital. Over the next several days, hooked up to many tubes, his life was saved. Our family learned that a clinic attached to the hospital is world-renowned for its expertise related to his medical condition. He was released from the big-city hospital on Christmas Eve. Back in Camrose, a nurse came to his home– on Christmas Eve–to make sure everything was okay. More recently, in my annual physical checkup, my physician spotted a potential problem and ordered some tests. Those tests led to other tests–booked within just a few days and free of charge–that identified what could be a life-threatening condition. Follow up treatment is in the works. All this during a pandemic! Again, the medical expertise and facilities are available without direct financial cost to me. ***
Because I have friends in the U.S., I’m keenly aware that their reality is different. Once when I was in the U.S. and a friend became violently ill, I was one of the people who accompanied her to the nearest hospital. I was shocked that the first question anyone asked was how she would pay the cost of whatever treatment might be required. Fortunately for her, she had private health care insurance. As near as I could tell, if she hadn’t been able to prove she could pay, she might not have received treatment. She might have been turned away. That experience was before Obamacare, so the situation may be somewhat different now. It did bring into sharp focus how fortunate we are. I know our health care is not “free”. It’s paid for by a significant chunk of our taxes. At various times over the years. It’s not perfect. I’ve made the odd caustic remark about how a specific health practitioner performed some function. I’ve been appalled by “two-tier health care”. A few years ago, a friend was told she could wait eight months for a diagnostic test OR, for $800, she could get the test within a few days. I’ve thought that the cost of certain prescription drugs, and dental and vision care, ought to be covered by public health care rather than require private insurance. Quibbles. When members of our family have required medical care, we have sometimes been stressed out about their medical condition. Never once did we also have to worry about the direct cost of their care creating a devastating financial blow to the family. “Cha-ching!” was never one of the concerns. I am profoundly grateful. ***
I’d love to hear from you! If you have comments about this column or suggestions for future topics, send a note to Bonnie@BonnieHutchinson.com. I’ll happily reply within one business day.
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Being the Third Best Independent Newspaper in North America is an outstanding accomplishment! Kudos to The Camrose Booster staff/crew who so diligently creates this paper every week. You do Camrose proud! Congratulations on being recognized for this accomplishment. Your readers are so grateful to you for keeping us informed and up to date regarding all that transpires in our community and Alberta in general. You have focused on community interests (e.g. antique/old automobiles), and raised awareness regarding community needs (e.g. County/ City fire, recreation and recycling costs), providing details your readers need to use when making decisions. You have also covered political nuances, zeroing in on what needs to be said with tactful confidence and verbal poise. The detailed article on fitness served as a reminder to get me moving again. I first met Connie in the Bethany warm pool exercise classes. The article, with its clear 15-point “Tips to get there” (and the clincher, “never give up!”) made me dig out my exercise sheets, my mat, the big ball and my walking poles, again, and renewed my resolve to try to get moving. We don’t know who to thank for the Booster Banter, but we thank them for infusing a little levity into a rather grim COVID-19 existence. Know that we have shared some of those chuckles with Edmontonians and a shut-in octogenarian UK friend. The Booster is so relevant to many aspects of our lives. For this, and much more, we thank you! Marion and Bill Leithead, Bawlf Punching bag Our MLA Jackie Lovely must be feeling like a piñata or a punching bag these days, as a small but very vocal and never happy group of NDP supporters constantly attack her in print when they’re not “busy” marching around in front of her office or trying to harass her on the telephone. Now I’m
sure Ms. Lovely realizes that she is “fair game” as an elected representative, but that doesn’t likely make it any easier. Apparently, these people object to being referred to as “socialists” even though that is the commonly accepted term for those who believe government spending is the only solution to society’s problems. Has it now become a dirty word? Our provincial government has the very difficult task of trying to help our economy survive, as well as protect our health during the worst pandemic of our lifetime, and do it without laying an insufferable burden of debt on future generations. This is not an easy task. It would be much easier to take the NDP (and federal Liberal) approach of just spending enormous amounts of money with little or no accountability and letting the chips fall where they may. One of the recurring complaints seems to be the “massive cuts” to government funding, in particular, post-secondary education. While it is unfortunate anytime jobs are lost, the fact is the impact of the pandemic and economic downturn has been far more devastating to the private sector. Small business owners and employees have real “survival” concerns, but they are not the ones hounding their MLA. Larry Lewsaw, Camrose Pipelines The cancellation of the TC XL pipeline was not inevitable, but a fair bet for anyone paying attention. Jason Kenny risked dumping $1.5 billion into XL and providing another $6 billion in loan guarantees on what many anticipated would become a white elephant. Add into the mix the $1.3 billion in losses when he nixed the oil-by-rail program with his incompetent and myopic push to bring back Alberta oil’s glory days, he has cost Albertans dearly. Now he is falling back on an easy and familiar target, the federal government. Somehow, they didn’t do enough to compel the new president to ignore America’s own Paris commitments. What could Alberta have done with the
$8.8 billion? According to the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association, the technical potential of generating electricity from deep well geothermal in Alberta is 555,800 MW. The theoretical potential, that is drilling deeper and working to mature the technology, is almost 8.2 TW. Deep well geothermal uses exactly the same technology we use to drill oil wells. It uses the same personnel, engineering, drillers, suppliers and down hole tooling. One pilot in southern Saskatchewan has cost $10 million to produce the needed heat. These geothermal installations have a generating capacity of five to 20 MW. Camrose uses close to 20 MW of electricity. The estimated employment requirement is about four FTE per MW to operate each plant. Once upon a time in Alberta, a man named Lougheed had a vision for something called the Alberta Tar Sands. He was told that it was not economically viable, but he committed Alberta to research and develop the technology needed to make what was to become the economic lifeblood of Alberta a reality. In Alberta, we have thousands of orphan wells. Potentially, we could be providing cities and towns with renewable, carbon-free electricity. We could easily become a net exporter of power. The big question is, with low oil prices, increasing GHG emissions, rising unemployment and an expert, ready-made work force, why are we not fully embracing the ultimate potential of deep well geothermal? We could be a world leader in geothermal generation, an exporter of green electricity, we could meet our Paris commitments and beyond, and Kenny could leave a legacy that would give our children a livable planet. But I guess it’s easier and more in character to pick fights with the feds. Tim Belec, Camrose
