Letters: Health-care system demands attention; natural gas devastating to environment

Article content

Health system requires attention, change

Recent editions of The Telegraph Journal have devoted at least 25 per cent of its space outlining problems within the medical system. Everything from doctors, travelling nurses, seniors in hospitals taking up space and the list goes on.

This concentration of news concerning one basic need (medical care) is an indication that there is something wrong with the medical system.

I, along with the majority of New Brunswickers and politicians, do not know anything about running the health department let alone suggest how to improve the situation. I am not complaining about the system, I am just expressing some personal thoughts.

In March 2023 I was admitted to hospital with critical medical conditions. I was in the hospital for two months. COVID-19 was rampant on the floor I was on for a few weeks. I was in a four-bed room with sometimes five in there. Masking and disinfecting was the norm for the doctors, nurses, personal care workers and the cleaning people and anyone else who came into the room. The situation required extra effort from every worker on the floor.

Not once in my two months did I ever see one of the workers get frustrated, lose their patience or not be kind to the patients. God knows there were times when they had every reason to lose their patience. What I am trying to say is that any short comings of the system can’t be attributed to the staff. I mean from the doctors to the cleaners. This, of course, is based on my experience only. I have to say that local nurses are much more compassionate and understanding than those who are not familiar with the Maritime culture.

It must be that whatever the problems are in the system it must go back to those who set policy and those who are responsible for supervising the organization. The organization is most likely over staffed in the wrong places and there are too many cooks in the leadership roles and not enough cookies (as in a woods camp) in the right place.

Ken McGeorge, your medical commentary appears to have a lot of good suggestions. I wonder if anyone is listening. I would also like to know how the two systems cooperate with each other and if they share common resources, ideas and if some cost cutting could be found in between the two organizations. Maybe one administrative organization is enough.

I believe that the organizations need new blood at the top and extra help at whatever the bottom is.

Robert Fisher

Bathurst

Editorial was lacking substance

The article says the moratorium is what’s standing in the way of industry players returning to invest in our province. Let’s just say money could be made if the moratorium was dropped. 

Not one word, not one, was printed in the article to acknowledge the devastating effects mining for natural gas has on our environment. With the plethora of evidence that exists documenting the destruction caused by fracking, why anyone would think a one-sided article would be worthy of consideration is beyond me.

Surely, as enlightened, educated citizens who pay to read the paper, we should be demanding articles that actually have substance. 

Carolyn Kimball

Quispamsis