“It’s hard to understand how the new ‘top gun’ of Santé Québec will get hospitals and other health facilities to cut $1.5 billion from their budgets.”
I tried to go to a “walk-in” medical clinic on a Saturday in the West Island. What a shock to be told that in-person access is no more. You have to go online or call!
How deplorable our health care has become for time-sensitive care short of going to the ER or paying a private clinic. In 2018, I was treated for the same issue on Day 1 at this busy clinic.
It’s hard to understand how the new “top gun” of Santé Québec will get hospitals and other health facilities to cut $1.5 billion from their budgets without negatively affecting patient care, and how access will be improved when so many people don’t have family doctors and ERs are overcrowded and we’re told to avoid them.
I happen to have a family doctor since 2020, but she was not available for two weeks. I guess I should have driven to Hawkesbury, Ont.
Caroline Malcolm, Beaconsfield
McGill wrong to rip out sapling
Before we decided to plant two trees on our property, we asked a Mohawk friend what kind we should choose. “White pines,” came the reply without hesitation.
These majestic trees have been growing for 13 years now, and every time we look at them, we wish for peace for all of us.
As a McGill graduate (bachelor of engineering, 1969), I think the university was wrong to rip out the pine sapling planted by Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) women on campus.
This can easily be corrected. I urge McGill, with members of the Mohawk community, to plant one or two white pines for peace. I would be happy to bring the shovel.
Richard Pesner, Piedmont
Imported monkeys more than health issue
Having recently become aware of Canada’s part in the pipeline for macaques to be used for experiments, I want to thank Michelle Lalonde for her in-depth article on this very disturbing topic, as the health consequences of this are frightening to say the least.
But what I also appreciated was her discussion of the monkeys. It is so easy to forget there are thousands of macaques who will never see the sun, never swing in the trees, and have infant upon infant ripped from their arms to meet a fate worse than death as they are sent to labs to be experimented upon. To ever see the faces of these macaques, especially their eyes, tells us these are living beings who feel fear, and if they feel fear it means they feel pain.
This pipeline brings nothing but suffering for all involved — and why, when there are safer and more reliable ways to test treatments and medical techniques?
Sara Crane, Toronto
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