WIIITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1985, PAGE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson THE CROW'S NEST by Michael Knell Sick Kids still one of the best hospitals in the world The report of Mr. Justice Samuel Grange concerning the 36 suspicious deaths at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children was finally made public last week and the experts are now dissecting it and we will be swamped with analysis and opinions for weeks, if not months, to come. I don't want to talk about the Grange Report but I do want to give you some thoughts on the hospital (or H.S.C., as its staff calls it) and the medical profession in general. My wife and I had to take our new born son to the H.S.C. for tests last week and we had a few problems trying to find the right place to take him and suf- fered from the usual bureaucratic headaches. But once the paperwork was done and he was in the right place, my son received some of the best medical care to be found, as far as I'm concerned, anywhere in the world. The staff, doctors, nurses and technicians treated my son as a human being - they recognized his right to receive care with comfort and they took the time to speak to my wife and I as if we were intelligent adults - not misguided adolescents. Every step of the testing procedure was explained to us in layman's terms. If we didn't understand, they went over everything again. They were polite, ef- jicient, compassionate and professional I don't know wlhat else we could ask for in a hospital. The reason I make these comments is two fold. Firstly, I don't want any of my readers who have children to be wary of H.S.C. Secondly, I think H.S.C. should be an example to other hospitals and medical professionals across this provin- ce, country. Far too often, I find that doctors, nurses and other health care professionals have little or no respect for their patients. They don't take the time to explain to their patients, or their patients' parents, what is happening to them and how it will be treated. Sometimes, I feel that the medical profession treats people like mushrooms. You know, they keep us in the dark and then feed us fertilizer (I would use a stronger word, but this is a family newspaper). Often, and doctors are particularly guilty of this, they believe that because we don't have a medical degree (or a nursing diploma for that matter) that we cannot understand their world. I think we can, if the professionals take the time to talk to us - not as if we are dolts, but as the mature, intelligent adults we are. Have you ever been to the doctor with a complaint, and after being examined, asked him what he thought was wrong only to find him searching for the right words or being a little vague on the subject? I have, many times. And that is what I object to. Doctors are people. They suffer from the same faults and prejudices and have the same virtues and potentials that the rest of us do. To paraphrase the old saying, they take down their pants the same way the rest of us do. Then, why do they insist on treating us like children? While this complaint against the medical profession is valid, I don't believe that thi situation is as bad as it used to be. With the popularity of medical showsý on television, some of which hire real doctors to give realism to the scrip- ts, and the rise of the medical consumerism movement, doctors have started to shy away from the "Mother Knows Best" policy they adopted as a profession. I was surprised at the frankness and openness with which my wife and I were treated at H.S.C. I have been to hospitals in this area on a few occassions and was never treated, to my recollection, with the consideration I received at H.S.C. I am also convinced that if the medical profession stopped acting like a private club (or an esbat of witches) they would probably get more support and understanding frorm the general public. There is nothing worse than dealing with someone who won't talk to you in terms you can understand. This is probably one reason why many people have a fear or distrust of doctors and others in the medical profession. The tragedies that occured at the Hospital for Sick Children four years ago will hover over that*institution for a long time to come. I think the Grange Report will do much to perpetuate the apprehensions. After all, it wasn't con- clusive. It gave no answer to the questions burning deep in everyones' mind - were any of those babies deliberately murdered? And, if so, by whom? No one will ever know for sure. But, I don't think after my recent experience at H.S.C., that anyone should hesitate to take their child to that hospital for treatment. From what I have seen it is still one of the finest hospitals of its kind in the world. The work that they do is amazing. One only has to think of the Siamese twins from Burma who were successfully separated to appreciate the work being done there by com- passionate, top notch professionals. The people I met at H.S.C., from the admission clerks to the technicians to the nurses and doctors, were terrific. Like all parents, I was slightly apprehensive about the tests being done to my three-week old son. They soothed my fears and answered my questions in a manner that showed me they really cared about my son and his parents. If only the entire medical profession behaved the way their collegues do at H.S.C. If they did, I am convinced health care in Ontario would be the best in the world. SOLWAY Dispelling the myth "Moved out here because it is a better place to raise kids." A myth. A sad piece of self-delbsion. A conclusion jumped to. One of the pieces of modern (and inaccurate) folk lore. And I heard it just a few months ago. And I made one young eager and decidated mother angry at me. I keep threatening to run another in my regular irregular series on downtown, and on what makes a place a good "people" place to live. Here we go. This piece is dedicated to the millions of people who moved to suburbia and "ex-urbia" (another word for small town life beyond the suburbs.) To those millions who longed for a place of their own away from the concrete jungles and monoxide congestion of the city streets. To the urge to somehow be better than it had been. On behalf of fresher air and room to run. That's what the post- war period brought us. And it was right. And we prospered. In Canada, we had Don Mills and in America they had Levittown. In American big cities only the un- derprivileged, the disadvantaged, the desparate remained in the city cores. Except New York's bet- ter Upper East Side or West Side and the Mies Van Der Rohe Lakeshore in Chicago, people fled to suburbia for a better life. Most Canadian cities stayed healthy in their downtown core, but the move became a flood to suburbia and (again) to ex-urbia. Enough history. What also happened was a new and inescapable bond with the family automobile(s) and a separation of residential and commercial. The residential was little cul de sacs and crescents, while the commercial was newly mined shopping centres. Between the two was a concrete and asphalt pavement. And the shopping centre begat the supermarket and the chain store. And they grew and multiplied and were healthy. And the light shone. believed, and perpetuated the idea that somehowall that space (unavailable in the evil city) was somehow good for children. And from that came the idea that there was less crime, more caring, less panic, more wholesone enjoyment. Crash. It came down in a heap. I am not against the movement. It is economically and emotionally necessary, even preferred. What I am against is the myth it created: that somehow it produced better children; that a crowded environ- ment creates anxiety and crime, and an open one creates better offspring. True that urban crowding accompanied by poverty does create problems. But it is high time we all stopped being so smug about this "better" life we have created. Face facts. The crime rates, the physical danger from everything from a mugger to a deviate, the drug abuse, the alchoholic stupor, the lack of "anything interesting to do" are just as frequent in suburban or ex-urban paradise as they are in the city. What makes children secure and safe and produc- tive and caring is the quality of life created for them in their homes and by their institutions. The geography has precious little to do with it. Back to that woman with the good intentions. Our conversation was in the dining room of the Marigold after a play. Our conversation started with "How much culture means in this area?" and ended with her proclamation that she moved here (actually to Ajax) to provide a better, safer, happier environ- ment for her children. I had the nerve to say some of the things I've writ- ten here to her then. She didn't like them. "Children," I said "Deserve to grow up in a rich en- vironment, with variety, with culture, with theatres and interesting people." Then I hit into my favorite topic: cultural events and the Durham Region. Because I and Nuala try, and mostly succeed, to do something unusual, we know that the "market" is there. But it is hard sometimes. And I told her that. I told her that people who chose to live in non-places that had no life, no zest, nothing but shopping plazas, hockey rinks, and subdivisions, were not CONT'D ON PG. 10 WEL lEgE'5 A 1HE U)UI-5-. ,4;rPALL A-ILUITTER OVER FI,- WR5 1 1