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6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday November 23, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager We need doctors No more Band-Aid solutions. The province needs a comprehensive plan to ensure Ontario residents have access to a family physician. A lengthy investigation by Metroland West Media Group (see inside today's Oakville Beaver) reveals the province is spending less money and allocating fewer resources on programs designed to find and keep family doctors here. "Forecasting the current or future need for any health profession is very difficult," the Ministry of Health said in answer to questions posed by Metroland. We politely suggest to the ministry that its answer simply isn't good enough. Is that what Oakville residents really want to hear from their elected officials when they can't find a doctor to care for them? The GTA -- in particular Halton -- is experiencing unprecedented growth. The shortage of doctors and the very serious issue of general practitioners not wanting to work inside hospitals are among the many problems plaguing the health care system. In Oakville there are 13,800 people without a doctor, in Milton that number is 11,040 and for Burlington, 4,140 residents are still looking for a GP. Specifically, Oakville needs 10-15 GPs, Milton 5-8, Burlington 3-4 and Halton Hills, 3. Halton Region had the foresight to employ a full-time family physician coordinator. It is Angela Sugden Praysner's job to entice general practitioners to set up shop in Halton's four municipalities. Over the past five years, she has recruited 60 doctors to the area. While that number may sound impressive, the region still requires 30 doctors. When older MDs retire, their patient load of 2,000-plus suddenly puts a strain on the system. Thirteen GPs have retired in Oakville and Burlington alone since 2002. Sugden Praysner is forever playing catch-up. The province must develop an overall strategy that will support the roles of family physician co-ordinators. Family doctors represent the glue that binds the fabric of communities. Without these dedicated men and women providing day-to-day patient care, our elected officials will no longer be able to brag about the quality of life here in Halton. The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Let's hear it for the young people of Oakville For the last 20 food drives, I have had the opportunity of working as a volunteer at our Oakville Fareshare Food Bank. As I helped in sorting food I could witness first hand the generosity of our Oakville community as our drivers arrived daily with food collected from our bins which are located in most supermarkets and all fire halls. Food also arrived from businesses, stores, dental offices, churches -- too many to mention here. Several high schools participate in the Halloween for Hunger program where they go out on Halloween and collect food, rather than candy, for the Foodbank and they all do a remarkable job. As an example, recently Abbey Park High School delivered the food they had collected in one night, via their Halloween for Hunger campaign, and it was 12 vans full. I have never seen that much food collected in a single day before. The food bank was overflowing with bags and boxes. It was an amazing job of organization, effort, and sheer hard work run entirely by the students. The following weekend, these students and their principal came to the food bank and put it all away. In addition, many schools in Oakville both elementary and secondary hold food drives throughout the year to support the food bank and are especially good at providing car loads of single items such as diapers, cereal, powdered laundry soap or whatever the food bank needs most at the time. Not only that, they also volunteer to come and help sort the food and put it away and this is only one of many outreach efforts these young people are involved in throughout the year. The food bank would be in dire straits without these contributions. I'm not sure that we all realize or appreciate what an amazing group of community minded young people we have in this town. Congratulations and thank you. You are doing a fantastic job! BEV ZIEGEL Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com Honouring vets isn't celebrating war I am very surprised that you devoted two pages to such a negative person as author Linda McQuaig, especially when she makes comments such as "the 90th anniversary of Vimy Ridge was celebrated by our government, because they want to celebrate war." She should read the first sentence of your guest columnist Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn -- who said: "As Canadians marked Remembrance Day last week, I stopped to think of the tremendous contributions, sacrifices, and legacy our veterans left us." Did she attend a Remembrance Service somewhere? Perhaps not, because we were "celebrating." Shame on her. G. VANDER LAAN The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council.The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206,Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone 416-340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline.