Dear Editor
Thanks Barbara, for explaining the doctor situation in Lillooet and Lytton.
But what it has done is confirm my contention that the communities around us are either getting doctors, or already have them. And we are not.
If three are expected in Lytton, as you have written, by the end of April, and Lillooet already has five, it is obvious we have not been successful.
These communities are doing something that we are not. Let’s find out what it is.
I heard a rumour that a handsome annuity is involved to the tune of $100 K. If so, is it federal money?
Half a dozen persons have expressed agreement with the opinions in my letter to the editor about the doctor shortage here. The word ‘savy’ is slang, but the meaning is unmistakable. It is understanding, shrewdness, according to my dictionary.
I read Alice Durksen’s column about efforts that are being made to recruit ‘on line’. I’m afraid that is not terribly reassuring.
What is surfacing is anxious concern. Our large senior population demands on-going medical attention. When doctors leave and they are not replaced forthwith, there is a domino effect, involving pharmaceutical needs and the availability of crucial medications for chronic conditions.
There is a lot at stake here. Human lives. If the tone of my letter offended any one, I can’t help that. As a 40 year resident of this area, I have seen the erosion of medical doctors and hospital facilities that are absolutely perishing.
We are all of us aware that the problem is large, but merely writing it off as the usual kind of problem in other communities, well, that is just not good enough.
Esther Darlington MacDonald
Ashcroft