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poe - 6 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, June 28 1988 Editorial Comments THE HOSPITAL On July 7, a delegation from Community. Memorial rospital in Port Perry will meet with senicr officials with the Ministry of Health. The purpose of the meeting: to try to convince the Health Ministry that our local hospital needs more money to operate. We wish the delegation luck. As just about everyone in Ontario knows, the provincial government has made it fairly clear this year that it will not be opening up the cof- fers to cover the operating deficits rung up by Ontario hospitals. And there are about 90 such hospitals with a deficit this past year. In the case of Community Memorial, the amount is not i198, just over $200,000 on a total budget of $4.4 mil- ion. Bad management might be the cause of deficits in some of those 90 hospitals, but not this one. In fact, the Board of governors at Community Memorial has hired an outside professional health care consultant to take a hard look at the hospital and how it is run, to prove that this hospital needs more money just to keep up with the demand for services. The hospital's annual report, handed out at last week's annual meeting, is full of statistics about the num- ber of patient/days, admissions, lab tests, operations, physiotherapy visits, X-ray exams, and visits to the emer- gency department. As somebody once said, you can use statistics to prove (or dis-prove) damn near anything. But what they show is that our local hospital has be- come a very busy place. And why not. Just take a look at the community this hospital serves. Has Scugog been standing still over the past few years? Not a chance. The population has grown to more than 15,000. Several major and very busy high- - ways run through or close to the hospital. The Township has become a year round recreation get-away for people from all over Durham and Metro Toronto. When some- body from Whitby has an accident while boating on the lake, where does he go for treatment? If Scugog Township was some sleepy little back- water, off the so-called beaten trail where nothing much changes, we could believe that the local hospital would "not have to spend any more than the inflation rate. But that simply is not the case here. For some reason, our provincial government has sin- gled out hospitals this year to "get tough with" when it comes to spending. Fair enough. But is it right and just for ALL hospitals to get the same brush, when the cir- cumstances obviously are not the same from one facility to the next? We are not suggesting that the provincial government simply open up the cheque book every time a hospital runs up a deficit, especially if somebody can prove bad management. We are suggesting the province look at in- dividual cases. It would be a pity to see our very busy hospital forced to cut back levels of service for a lack of money. : 3 NW ee NN N N AER RARER NR ~ NNN PESNRNNY NAAR INNS AN NN ds soll S ANS Su N - 255 ARS ee eT Port Perry STAR 235 QUEEN STREET - PORT PERRY, ONTARIO Phone 985-7383 P.0.Box90 LOB 1NO J. PETER HVIDSTEN Publisher Advertising Manager {# CNA [GD ) (099 Aa Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Community Newspaper Association. Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Perry, Ontario. J.B. McCLELLAND Editor Authorized as second class mail by the Post . Office Department, Ottawa, and for cash CATHY OLLIFFE payment of postage in cash. News & Features Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 ve, ob Subscription Rate: In Canada $20.00 per year. Elsewhere $60.00 per year. Single Copy 50° $ A SAPEns A330C © COPYRIGHT -- All layout and composition of advertisements produced by the adver- tising department of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copyright and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Chatterbox y Cathy Olliff FOLLOWING THE CHICKEN TRUCK Monday morning | woke up with an ulcer- sized pain twitching in my gut. My eyes flipped open when the alarm sounded, and the first thing to register, after . the pain, was guilt. "I haven't written my column yet," | said aloud. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. Not having one's column done by Monday morn- ing is a cardinal sin here at the Port Perry Star. | wondered briefly how many Hail Mary's it would take to get me out of this mess. Most weeks, | have the confounded thing done by Wednesday afternoon, Thursday morning at the latest. But last week | didn't have a clue to write about, not one measley idea had crossed the vast recesses of my pea- sized brain. So | kept putting off the inevitable. At quit- ting time Wednesday, | wasn't worried. The same time Thursday, | thought, well, I'll do it to- MOrTow. On Friday | was so doggone busy | didn't have a chance to work on my column-- anyways, | still didn't have an idea. At some point, | recall skimming through the newspapers, trying to find some little news item | could force an opinion from. All | could find was wrap-ups of the Summit, and | couldn't very well write about that. Like most of the country, | didn't even know what the thing was all about, except catching up on the latest Mila and Nancy fashions. Having failed the quest to find an opinion, | third-degreed my personal life to see if any- thing exciting was happening there. Hal Our house is up for sale, but | can't very well use this space to advertise that foweuel, | we don't soon get an offer, this column will con- sist of a picture, a la Better Homes & Gardens). I've been on a diet, but darned if I'm going to jinx my present success by writing about it. We've adopted no new birds. We haven't won a lottery. We haven't even seen a movie lately. Our lives, alas, are pleasant but boring. So there | was, still without an idea. Monday morning, and a big case of the guilts was filling me up like an all you can eat buffet at a beanery. Riding into work, | quizzed my husband to see what ideas he could come up with. He didn't get a chance to answer. A big transport full of chickens had just pulled out in front of us and Doug was busy applying a heavy foot on the brake pedal. The truck pulled out of the farm laneway as if in slow motion, easing onto Highay 7A like an ancient dinosaur, its load swaying slightly as it made the turn. We watched curiously, our minds returning to the recent ride we took with our Uncle Ho- ward on his truck. "Betcha Uncle Howard is glad he doesn't carry chickens," | said to Doug. "Look at all the feathers!" my husband said, exchocy pointing his finger over the steering wheel. | looked, and sure enough, a virtual snow- storm of white feathers was swirling out from the back of the transport. We both started to laugh. The snowey cloud of feathers was pouring out all over the road, and all over our wind- shield. We felt like we were in one of those old movies where a car drives through a hay wag- on, and a chicken inevitably winds up as a hood ornament. As the truck picked up speed, the amount of feathers raining from its rear actually in- creased--and the faster the truck went, the more feathers flew out the back. Through the haze of fluff, we spotted sever- al of the chickens sticking their heads out the back of the open crates, as if trying to catch the feathers as they flew off their bodies. "Those birds'll be bald before they ever reach the big Kentucky Fried Chicken in the sky," | chortled. The jokes, needless to say, starting flying al- most as furiously as the feathers. Drivers going the other way blinked and gaped as they drove through the white cloud, and as we passed them, we could see their heads cranked up to rear view mirrors, their eyes incredulous. Merrily we followed the truckload of chick- ens into Port Perry, feeling very much like bridesmaids following the happy couple get- ting doused with confetti. This mood stayed with me all the way into the office, and right up to my computer, where | am now happily ensconced, secure in the knowledge that | only have a few more lines to fill in this dreaded empty space. So okay, this hasn't been the best column in the world, but at least it's done--and the best thing about writing a column, is finishing it.