WAP Leader Danielle Smith is called out by the medical community over her comments…
Ms. Smith earlier on Tuesday wrote a letter to the Calgary Herald extolling the benefits of saving the Health Resource Centre.
Two doctors wrote letters to the editor calling her out on her twisted viewpoint and twisting of the truth. They are posted below with links to their original pages on www.CalgaryHerald.com.
Letter #1
Ask the experts
Re: “Province must intervene to save HRC,” Danielle Smith, Opinion, Aug. 24.
I think Steve Miller and his orthopedic and anesthesia colleagues do a very good job of the hip and knee arthroplasties they perform at the HRC. So I agree with that sentiment in Danielle Smith’s piece. What she did not state, however, is that arthroplasty at the HRC is confined to the healthiest patients. The higher-risk patients are all done at the AHS hospital sites. It is typical for private facilities to provide care only to the healthiest patients who have the fewest complications and the lowest hospital costs. If Smith wishes to use superlatives to describe care in private facilities, she needs to compare similar populations of patients. Perhaps if Steve had limited the size of his new facility, and done a better job of managing his investors, without biting off more than he could chew, then AHS would not have had to intervene legally to protect the patients who were committed to HRC. Smith might start to educate herself on this topic by reading the account by Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine (Google: Marcia Angell, Privatizing health care is not the answer: lessons from the United States. Canadian Medical Association Journal, Oct. 21, 2008.) What Angell may have forgotten about this topic is more than Smith will ever know. I encourage Albertans to listen to people who know what they are talking about.
Charles MacAdams, MD, Calgary
And letter #2:
One SidedRe: “Province must intervene to save HRC,” Danielle Smith, Opinion, Aug. 24.
I have not made up my mind whether private surgical clinics such as the HRC are good for Albertans or not. However, I find Danielle Smith’s column interesting. To me, it is most telling that Smith seems to throw her support completely behind the HRC while condemning the Alberta government when she states: “The facts of this case are yet to be determined in court, however, HRC’s version of events is as follows . . . . ” So it seems like she has made up her mind after only hearing one side of the story. One must ask if Albertans would want the leader of a political party, much less someone who aspires to be the leader of the province, to lack such basic skills as fact gathering and the patience to hear both sides of the story before making up her mind on an issue.
Ken Cheung, MD, Calgary
Mayoral Debate Tomorrow
I’ll be going. You should too. Information is below:
Date- Sunday Aug 29
Time- 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Meet and Greet – 12 noon – 1:00pm
Location-
Croatian Canadian Cultural Center
3010 12 St NE
Calgary, ABFEEL FREE BRING A GUEST, AND TO FORWARD THIS INVITATION TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY.
The Calgary Leadership Forum is a 1400 member non-partisan think tank, dedicated to improving the quality of life for the citizens of Calgary, for this and future generations.
For more information visit www.calgaryleadershipforum.com or call Brian Lee CSP, President, 4036077444 or email empowerpeople@hotmail.com
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http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81404767871#!/event.php?eid=136727559700944&ref=ts <http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136727559700944&ref=ts>
Kent Hehr Does It Again–He Gets It On Accountability
Kent Hehr gets it on accountability. It’s not about promises; it’s not saying what you’ll do and who you’ll do it with; and it’s not vast schemes or machinations.
It is in being accountable that you are accountable. It is within the actions that you partake in that show that you are a candidate for accountability. Mr. Hehr has chosen two days ago to act to prove that he is a candidate for accountability by releasing the names and the amounts donated to his campaign. In an election where no candidate or group is mandated to show their funders until months, and if they play their cards right it can be years, after an election, and in an area considered a ‘wild west’ for campaign laws, Kent Hehr has shown remarkable courage and personal strength.
Nenshi has already backtracked on accountability, McIver is silent, Higgins seems to be stuck on platitude mode (she’s a fiscal conservative with a big heart, whatever that means): and Hehr is the only man for mayor trumpeting the cause. Mr. Seskus, writer for the Calgary Herald, is right: it’s time for mayoral candidates to show the money and the people influencing them. Mr. Hehr has provided the leadership and the guts to do this and now the rest of the candidates need to follow in his footsteps.
As noted before in another posting of mine, Kent Hehr’s actions on accountability is making him a very high quality candidate for mayor. I can only hope that the mass media (as DJ Kelly has noted) doesn’t sink Hehr’s campaign out of a self-induced trance of idiocy and dumbing down of politics as media outlets are want to do every election cycle.
