It seems never a day goes by and someone is taking a strip off our health-care system and its mode of operation.
Here in our province the task of offering good, quality care and keeping within the confines of money allotted in order to operate has to be a monumental task.
The substantial amount of money given by government to health care boards should be more than enough. Apparently not.
No time or place is a good time to become seriously ill. Our treatment is solely in the hands of our health-care providers.
We should be so lucky. They are good.
Most often the care given under the circumstances by those providers is genuine and carried out in a professional, caring manner by competent people.
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What most concerns me is many of those in dire need, perhaps through no fault of their own have no family or friends. Their struggle must be immense.
Thanks to the volunteers who help in that support role, to wonderful friends who have a strong belief in the Christian faith and respect others who hold strong religious values in their daily lives.
To put in perspective, we look from the outside in. We have to make the best of what we have. Until you sit eye to eye with a doctor and you are told you have a cancer or an illness that has no cure and is inoperable you can only surmise, yet never fully understand, what lies ahead for that person.
When the battle begins and, ultimately after months of treatment, you are privy to the inside operation of such a system as health care. You come to understand full well the quality care that is provided. My main concern is those less fortunate than most of us. The blank stare, the feeling of despair.
Those are the ones we must keep at the top of the radar and, in so doing, this will become a better place to live.
Ed Ralph
St. John’s
