Dear Editor
For as long as I have known Bill Spelay of Cache Creek, he has proven himself to be a first rate barber.
I am sure that countless customers of Bill, who were barbered at Bill’s shop in the Oasis Hotel in Cache Creek for years and years, will agree.
Bill has never cut anyone’s throat with a razor. Hasn’t even nicked a customer. His technique and manner, born over these many years, - the cuttings, the massages, the so careful touches that made Bill a master at his trade, made him one of those people you could entirely depend upon. Trust. Not only to do the job. But excel at it.
Well, apparently the bureaucrats at Interior Health decided that years of practical experience are of no account.
They have required all persons like Bill who volunteer their services at a very minimal cost to residents of Extended Care, have liability insurance. Upon inquiry, Bill was told such insurance would cost over $700.
When persons in Extended Care cannot have the services of those who make life just a little more bearable. A hair washing, cutting, curling, even a perm. When cutting a persons hair and trimming a mustache becomes a liability that only the insurance companies will benefit from, you have to wonder who our health authorities are working for.
This regulation is a peoples’ enjoyment killer. No doubt about it. For people who are the most vulnerable.
Some day, the people who make up these rules will find themselves in an extended care facility. Some day, they, too, will need a hair cut. A shave, a trimming of the mustache. Let us hope for their sakes, that the authority health people will have a bigger heart, and a more open mind. Will not impose such regulations. Which are mean-spirited and utterly lacking in any sensitivity whatsoever.
Esther Darlington MacDonald
Ashcroft