The following article was sent to me from Julie Smithson of
propertyrightsresearch.org


June 12, 2002



By Paul Sullivan psulli@...

Creative Resistance

http://www.creativeresistance.ca

To submit a Letter to the Editor: cathywoods@...


It's hard, when you get old, not to feel like a leftover. The party's over, the
guests have gone home. Somebody's putting food into plastic containers and
trying to make room in an overcrowded fridge. You're the stuff in the
Tupperware, and you feel lucky if you don't get chucked.

Somehow, you blew it. Here you were, alive and well, directing your own affairs,
when suddenly you got old. Your health went or, worse, your mind is going. You
can't take care of yourself any more. Or your spouse got old and it takes six
hours a day just to dress and feed her. Or maybe, after 50 years of overcoming
every challenge, you've both run out of steam.

But you're still alive. Your heart still beats and, boy, it still breaks.

I can just imagine how Grace and Alfred Potvin feel. Grace is 85, Alfred 84. As
of Saturday, they have been married 60 years. I don't know whether they got a
nice note from the Queen, but their provincial government certainly made the
occasion one to remember.

The Potvins used to live in a Chilliwack nursing home called Parkholm Lodge.
They each had a nice little private room across the hall from one another. But
while they stuck together through everything life could throw at them, they were
finally too weak to resist Premier Gordon Campbell's health-care reforms. The
Fraser Valley Health Authority closed Parkholm to cope with funding cutbacks,
and the Potvins were sent to Heritage Village, where they now live about a block
apart.

Then there's William Haymond, 85, and his wife, Barbara, 87. They've been
married 54 years and live in Noric House in Vernon. Barbara has dementia and is
confined to a wheelchair. William spends his days taking care of his wife, whom
he had met at a dance in Nanaimo after the war. They had both served their
country, and now their country is about to return the serve.

The Interior Health Authority has "reassessed" William, and decided that he's
too healthy to stay with Barbara and will have to move to an assisted-living
facility. Why? Because it costs $700 a day to keep people in a chronic-care
facility and $57 a day to put them on assisted living.

In its stampede to get health-care spending under control and tackle its record
$4.5-billion budget deficit, the Campbell government has trampled underfoot a
few ailing members of the herd. It's not a good time to be an elderly sick
person in B.C.

To his credit, the Premier says he's going to bend the rules to get the Potvins
back together. He says we should treat all seniors "like they were your mother."
Well, Mr. Campbell's mom may be doing well, but Alfred and Grace are still
apart, and probably will stay that way until somebody dies and they can shuffle
the folks around at Heritage Village. If their luck holds out, Alfred and Grace
may spend their final days together.

I have no idea how the bureaucrats in Vernon are going to handle William
Haymond. He's put a sign on his door: "I'm not moving. This is my home." Good
for him.

When the Liberals were in opposition, they sneered at the New Democrats, calling
them "social engineers" and busybodies in Birkenstocks. But they were careful to
declare that NDP health care and education would be "protected."

With the exception of the entire paying membership of the B.C. Federation of
Labour -- and that's not a small number, especially now that the nurses have
entered the tent -- most British Columbians were ready to tighten their belts if
that's what it took to "protect" health care. But we've traded left-wing social
engineering for a nasty, brutish and shorter right-wing version. When the dust
settles, we may have the deficit under control, but only after a wholesale
sacrifice of the elderly on the altar of efficiency.

On this day after the wedding of the increasingly venerable Sir Paul McCartney,
it's appropriate to ask each of B.C.'s 77 Liberal MLAs: Who will still need you,
who will still feed you, when you're 64 (or older)?




http://www.creativeresistance.ca/watch/2002-june12-globe-and-mail-do-not-grow-ol\
d-in-bc.htm






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