“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
-George Bernard Shaw
I hear it’s not a lot of fun with the Provincial Government being in on the ground floor of this stuff especially when it comes to ending alternative power generation, not allowing health care professionals refer to vaccines and what they are for publically, and I’m sure the list goes on from there which is fun to endure.
I was referring to my local redneck relations and friends in BC.
In years past I’ve had shorter wait times due to late night injuries from sports or hockey. I’ve always driven to smaller hospitals on the edges of town.
I’m not sure today how quickly that would go. A couple of years ago I broke a bone in my foot during a road trip in northern BC. They treated me in a small town were I was the only patient that day. I was treated by a GP and Nurse on a 2 week rotation from Saskatoon as there was no BC doctors for this small town. They didn’t have the air cast I needed but told me I could deal with that at my ER when I get home to Vancouver.
A week later when I got home I spent 8 hours one day at the local ER before I left due to a crazy medial situation that was erupting in the ER that I felt uncomfortable with, then the next day when I returned it was another 4+ hours waiting to see a doctor for the cast. Then I was able to get a referral to a specialist from there.
Most people would prefer to go to a drop in clinic before ERs but often the clinics are full for the day by the first hour they are open. There’s limits on how many patients they can see. If you have a illness many can’t wait the 2-4 weeks it takes to see a family GP so the walk in clinics (which are becoming more by appointment only) become that next stop before the catch all of the ER. I can’t imagine the BS those sick that need a note for work from a Doctor do.
I had a minor surgery in the summer. There was minor complications afterwards. It was 2 weeks before I could even do a phone consult with the family GP and then the walk in clinics were full. I was lucky to have one of the local clinics have me to wait around at the end of the day to see if they could squeeze me in to tend to my bandage issues. If they didn’t I was looking at a 2-3 day game of trying to find a clinic each morning.
In Vancouver I know someone that went to a thing called “Urgent Care” on a Sunday to get meds for her senior mother that had covid. The urgent care was there to take the load off the ER. After waiting 3 hours in there to see a healthcare person they were told they don’t issue prescriptions there and they would need to go to the ER for the prescription which was another long wait. It’s a good thing she wasn’t too sick /s.
There are issues with the timing of prescriptions, how far out they can be issued, and combined with the time frames it can take to see your GP many end up at the ER as a stop gap measure especially seniors if they lose track of their prescriptions.
There are also huge issues with nurses/care aids doing home care. Often there aren’t enough and seniors that rely on them for in home care need to wait for a day or two extra for those visits when there is enough staff. I saw this with my senior family members first hand just before Covid.
I fear it’s going to get worse before it gets better from here.
I would have to suspect if they haven’t already reduced hours or closed the facility it’s in small towns. They often can’t find enough staff so they close down and residents then need to make drives to the next major city to get treatment.
Often this involves multiple hour drives on icy and snow covered roads this time of year.
That said in the greater Vancouver area it’s not uncommon to wait 8+ hours in the ER for less severe cases. Often the ERs become overflow for drop in clinics that cannot handle the volumes.
Often the ER is the stopping place for those needing prescription renewals too as GPs (if one has one) can be 3-6 weeks out for bookings and I’m told there’s a mismatch to the renewal length maximums.
Ideally, never get sick, old, or need meds and there’s no issues… /s
Unfortunately there’s a segment of Canadians that have been exposed to the same brain rot social media as our Southern Cousins that would very much like to see Trump in power even in our country.
They often confuse American rights/amendments with Canadian and think they are interchangeable between the countries.
It’s a shame as we use to be proud of what made us same but also different. It’s an amazing lesson on the powers of social media and it shows how far behind we are compared to the Russians and the Chinese who are using it to their advantage within our countries. It’s child’s play for them now…
I would fear some of the free trade clauses that require export /import levels to be maintain in future years or penalties will be applied if they are not kept up. So if Canada decides in year 2 to reduce the exports, there will be penalties to pay.
Hard to believe they are this bad still with all of the government handouts over the years…
It’s embarrassing when I see this US nationalism infect so many walks of Canadian life. We were supposed to be better and to hold ourselves to a higher educated standard.
In the end it’s disheartening how easily our indenity is impacted but *by our southern cousins when the uneducated in Canada are protesting and spouting off about their US rights like they are the same as ours.
There were many reasons why our forefathers resisted US expansion into Canada and why we took another path from joining them as a country. Those reasons are convoluted and many but they made us unique and Canadian.
I fear that we will continue to be lost as we are further pulled into the misinformation sphere which has been so effective against many.
This seems to be the model I’ve witnessed with many apps over the years. Free at first to get traction and users, then ads, then pay one time fee to get rid of ads, then subscription to keep using the app.
Then there are those that wouldn’t even pay a single fee and get upset at the thought as everything should be free.
The part that is upsetting is the contributions the early community made is monetized when they were they there for the benefit of the community.
I do see there are costs to maintaining and updating these apps so I can understand a need to keep revenue flowing for these future costs. The one time payment is a hell of a deal for years with updates to accommodate the revisions needed for each system update let alone functionality improvements.
In the old days we would buy software for our PC and that was it. There wasn’t really any updates or further support for newer versions of Windows. The software would become very insecure or just stop functioning altogether with enough changes to windows.
It’s hard to find the right balance. I know I only want to pay once, or heck never, but I want these upgrades and updates too.
I fear no matter the spin to any side, those that don’t like what they hear will just yell “fake news” and go with their own story and find many that will confirm their viewpoint online.
This is just the simple concepts beyond the over communicated world we all live in and can’t digest across the board. There’s too much to be taken in.
This is why 4th grade language and Memes can be so effective with communicating a idea to the masses and is often accepted at face value.
It is easier today than ever to re-enforce lies as the truth for various reasons. In Mark Twain’s time he said: “a lie will fly around the whole world while the truth is getting its boots” while today just repeating the lie as often as possible with the mega phones of social media means the lie becomes a part of the discussion lie or not. A lie now has as much artificial weight as truth or facts in any discussion. Countering a lie with facts re-enforces these lies for their believers. It’s not going to be a fun time ahead.
Hopefully they are able to utilize the more modern designs. For the most part the general public’s frame of reference is Chernobyl or 3 mile island and those are fairly old designs from the 50s/60s.
I drove through Alberta down into Waterton National Park and was pleasantly surprised by the wind turbines on the way in the south. I wasn’t surprised to hear the new government has “paused” these projects to turn the focus back into oil.
With 1000s of abandoned oil rigs and tailing ponds in AB when will we stop allowing profits to be Private and losses and cleanup to be publicly funded?
But I’m fine and so are my other rural friends. It’s fake and vaxes are not needed. Not that they work. Fck them seniors. They are just old anyways.
/s
I quite enjoyed the movie too and there was a nostalgia on my part about those days and the beginning of the mainstream internet just before then too. I was also a big fan of Halt and Catch Fire that captured the times just before and into this period Good memories for those that enjoyed figuring things out back then.
From the BB movie I was curious about the extension of the mobile industry today beyond those early days of full capacity networks selling minutes to the move to iPhone selling a bunch more data than BBs used, to the present where the Canadian telecoms are finally giving away buckets of data like our US counter parts have for decades now.
What is the profit centers when minutes, long distance,data, and roaming is all included now? Is it just handset sales now?
I drove down into southern Alberta to Waterton this fall. I was pleasantly shocked to see so many wind turbines in AB.
I was not surprised and disappointed to hear they have “paused” future development /support for these initiatives. It’s also disturbing the amount of abandoned wells and tailing ponds the AB taxpayers are on the hook for. It seems to be Private Capitalism for the profits, and Public Welfare for the clean up and many Albertans seem more than fine with this.
Great that means even more abandoned wells for the taxpayers to be on the hook for once the money is sucked out of the ground.
At this stage, I say Fck the Airlines
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I was lucky to find another doctor after my family GP of decades retired at 85. He wasn’t allowed to keep practicing after 85. He moved to an advisory role in another clinic giving up his practice. He wasn’t able to find someone to buy his single practitioner clinic. The real estate costs and the many services where patients are passed around is the new model listed as reasons he couldn’t sell it. I suspect since everything was still in paper records didn’t help.
The new GP is one of many doctors in the same clinic. He does mostly phone calls with some in person visits but usually it’s phones calls first and it’s 7 - 20 days before one can get an appointment. Anything urgent will need to be a drop in clinic which are full most of the time, or the ER worse case.
I have to wonder how much minor time sensitive cases are burdening the system overall. I ended up at a drop in clinic as the last appointment this summer due to an issue with bandages after a surgery. If this had failed it was the ER next for me as there was no way the GP could fit me within a week unlike the old days with my GP. Thankfully a adjustment to my bandages and cream solved my infection but it was still minor.
I don’t think there’s a easy fix coming soon anytime…
Same here growing up in a small west coast town. There was rarely even a cafeteria that served hot meals until high school and it wasn’t much as it was run by students for economics/business class. They also managed a small store that sold junk food and pop.
I did go to high school in Calgary for a bit but I was mostly in shock by the full time RCMP office in the school and the diversity of students beyond the mostly First Nations and Caucasians I grew up with so the lunch situation wasn’t really something I recall.
I suspect much has changed since then as this was in the early 90s.
I recall leaving school to go to local fast food joints or the convenience store for something to eat as far back as junior high. I’ve seen plenty of this with local convenience stores near schools too.
Recently I was in Cranbrook BC and stopped at a Safeway around lunchtime. I was floored at how many students were there getting lunch. It seemed like it was a big deal for the store as I hadn’t seen such a large deli and sandwich areas in big city Safeways. The high school was across the street so perhaps it acts as a cafeteria in this case.
I’m curious how public food programs are delivered in schools.
I feel like an outsider on these debates. I totally agree we should be able to own forever.
In my case I find there is so much new TV and movies I rarely go back to re-watch shows or movies so owning them isn’t on my radar. It’s a challenge just to watch a whole series I find.
I’m wondering how often do people beyond kids re-watch movies and TV shows? Kids seem to be able to rewatch the same movies several times a day…