Tax the renting of docks

April 9, 2007

Dear Sir,

I believe Government needs to take another look at the taxing method on private docks. The Government needs to take into consideration the use of the dock. Old-timers that own a dock purely for the kids to fish off of or just to tie a punt to, should not have to pay an exorbitant tax, that they cannot afford. Obviously most people will decide to take the dock down. On the other hand there are many private dock owners who are benefiting from their docks by renting the docks out to boat owners, many times allowing these boat owners to use a private estate right-of-way. It seems to me to be much fairer to have a tax on the income that people are making from their docks.

‘GONE FISHING’ (ON THE DOCK THAT IS!)

Pembroke

Medical cart before horse

April 1, 2007

This was sent to Premier Dr. Ewart Brown and copied to The Royal Gazette

Dear Dr. Brown,

After watching the ZBM evening news on Sunday April 1st, 2007 regarding the closure of the Medical Clinic there are questions that must be addressed and some issues to be reflected on. It is obvious that the closure of the Medical Outpatient Care Clinic was about to be a “Done Deal” without the consideration of the very people it will affect and without any disclosure of viable alternatives for the care of the patients involved. We are tired of hearing of the “loss of dignity” for these same patients who rely on the services provided at the Clinic where they feel comfortable and are able to receive all diagnostic services in one place at one time.

The people of Bermuda pride themselves in living in a democratic society. Democracy is defined in the Webster’s Dictionary as “ a government by the people, a government in which the supreme power is held by the people”, and as “the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges”. To call the people responsible for speaking out against the closure of the Clinic “pessimistic” and “doom and gloom people” does not give democracy a fair chance. It is my understanding that the role of a leader within a democratic society is to facilitate democracy and not to dictate it. While adults may disagree, they should at least expect basic respect to be shown to one another whilst debating the issues over which they disagree. Name-calling is reserved for the school playground and even then it is disciplined. It is certainly not becoming of a country’s leader.

Countless people complain about issues in Bermuda and when nothing changes they are upset, even when they did nothing to change the situation. The action by the organisers of the campaign to keep the Clinic open should be applauded; be it considered right or wrong. Bermudians are finally taking hold of democracy! They are speaking out against issues that they normally just sit at home and complain about. This is no different than the action that you took when you fought for rights at Howard University in your student years. Whether you support their opinion or not, the campaigners that are fighting to keep the Clinic open should be treated with respect and not bullied by means of name-calling.

Yes, the clinic is open to see patients only four half days a week, however what has failed to catch the public’s attention is that patients are still able to call the Clinic and make appointments. Each day two registered nurses remain at the clinic completing necessary paperwork and are able to see and assess walk-in patients at anytime even after the doctors have left. It is also true that the doctor always remains contactable and is effectively on call 24 hours a day for those same patients.

If they are admitted to hospital via the ER, that same doctor is the doctor who takes care of them. This has been conveniently forgotten (or purposely left out). If there is an emergency at the Clinic the registered nurses have access to the Emergency Unit of the hospital right there in the same building. You are absolutely right that people do not get sick in half days. People will fall sick at any time, be they a patient on financial assistance or someone with a steady and comfortable financial means.

No matter who you are or what medical office you see, in Bermuda, it is often impossible to get an appointment with a doctor that day. It must be acknowledged that the Clinic is not the only medical practice with the issue of unavailability of doctors. Closing the doors of the clinic is not the answer to an island wide problem. To close the Clinic would in fact worsen this issue for General Practitioners’ offices and the Emergency Unit of the hospital.

To insinuate that because the Clinic is 100 percent Government funded that the Government can do as it pleases with it shocks me. Are the patients at the Clinic not Bermudian citizens? Do the citizens of Bermuda not pay the Government’s pay cheques? Not to consider and consult these very people in a decision that will directly affect them is in no way empowering them; rather it is taking away their dignity.

Finally, I am worried about your final remark that the Government is able to close the Clinic without consulting the patients because they were not consulted over its opening. How would you consult the patients before they are your patients? That remark causes me to question your original reason that you are closing the Clinic “to give the patients back their dignity”. Is that really your motive? A statement insinuating that you will not consult patients regarding their own health care is not giving back dignity but essentially taking it away.

All in all, the news cast on Sunday night confirmed my observation that the Government of Bermuda in fact put the cart before the horse on the issue of the closing of the Medical Outpatient Care Clinic. The Government seems not to have a plan or any real reason for the closure of the Clinic, or any explanation as to why they did not consult the very patients it will affect.

If closing the Clinic is the right decision for Bermuda, then why did you not consult the patients or medical staff on this proposal? An effective plan for continuing care should have been formulated before your announcement. Perhaps in retrospect there were ways that the closure of the Clinic could have been handled whilst maintaining patient dignity and continuance of patient care. Now it is too little too late. Keep the Clinic open and give the patients dignity by allowing them to choose the healthcare facility they want; THE CLINIC.

PESSIMISTIC, DOOM AND GLOOM

POSITIVE, DETERMINED, and GRACIOUS

Jennifer Brookes

P.s. We will present the signatures of the petition to Dr. Brown on Tuesday April 10 by way of a march from the flagpole on Front Street to the Cabinet starting at 11.30 a.m. Everyone is welcome to show their support.

We need a poop-scoop law

March 22, 2007

Dear Sir,

Re: All pooped out in Paget. I just finished reading your letter to the Editor. No you are not alone. I have had the same problem for years in my own driveway when I lived in Paget, probably from the same culprit. I am a dog lover, but I pick up after my own dogs, it is in my view a health hazard to leave dog waste behind. Spittal Pond which is a bird sanctuary has been abused for years by irresponsible dog owners, I could never understand why the Parks Department allowed dogs there in the first place. Unfortunately Bermuda does not have a poop-scoop law yet! Perhaps an e-mail to the Environment Minister would be the right way to tackle this problem.

DEBORAH A. MASTERS

Devonshire

Evil is absence of empathy

March 30, 2007

Dear Sir,

After reading Mr. Andre Curtis’ comments in Friday’s Royal Gazette in his capacity as chairman of “United by Faith” I felt it was time to fire up the old typewriter. “We may just choose to pick them (the passengers) up by bus and bus them to our church, to different denominations, and have the pastors pray for them.” Was his response to the upcoming Rosie O’Donnell gay cruise. Well, if I had half an ounce of self-respect that’s what I would opt for, being loaded on a bus and allowing a pack of righteous locals to pray over my wretched hide!

I’m just relieved you weren’t attempting interfaith dialogue with a ship-full of Jewish passengers. With the level of tact you’ve just displayed you’d probably outrage everyone by trying to load them onto the Front Street train for ‘transportation”.... As the head of ‘Faith-Based Tourism’, or is that ‘Fear-Based Faith’? You feel it important to prove to your potential customers where your core values lie. I’m curious as to whether you and yours would be making such a hue and cry if it was a ship full of single, athletic, heterosexual women arriving? Now that would be a source of concern wouldn’t it? I can just hear the clatter of those hundreds of wedding rings....

As you have a problem with a gay cruise being here for one week but have no problem with unloading a year-round supply of religious fundamentalists on the rest of us, (Okaaaay , they’ve got to sin somewhere, sheesh !) has it occurred to you how many of those passengers may themselves be Christians? Obviously not your brand of faith but their congregations will be watching nonetheless which might mean losing any moderate tourists for your own enterprise, and you know what that means don’t you? That’s right, trolling the ‘Hee-Haw’ belt to make up the lost numbers!

I assume you’re the same pesky bunch I overheard on the radio last year saying how much better Bermuda would be if it was run on ‘Biblical law’. Faster then you can sing “Joshua killed the children of Jericho...” I had an image of the first Bermudian to be stoned to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday.... For those of us who don’t take our morality straight from the manual or at least without understanding that some things tend to get lost in translation, I find your views on good and evil to be shall we say, quaint. Do you wish to know what evil is Mr. Curtis? Evil is simply the absence of empathy, to not see another human as fully human is to begin the slow laying down of plans for that human’s removal, and we’ve been so good at that haven’t we?

I think it was in ‘Moby Dick’ that I saw the phrase, “Better the company of a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.” Well, Mr. Curtis and company, if I may give you something a little closer to home, it’s better to be tiptoed up upon by someone who’s gay rather than someone who’s a religious fanatic, at least the former wants you alive....

GLEN LIMA

Paget

Riders are not infallible

March 20, 2007

Dear Sir,

Over the years I have been reading the letters to your paper with regards to the moans and groans about motor cyclists and disrespectful motorists on our roads. But never over this period of time have I ever read about some positive advice. As an ex-police driver (overseas and here) I would like to offer a couple of points which I had drummed into me at driving school, and that I have used over the many years that I have driven in many different countries.

My first comment is mainly directed towards drivers of two wheel vehicles, “NEVER BE THE MEAT IN THE SANDWICH” in other words do not start passing two approaching vehicles, their combined approached speed creates a situation which is referred to as “The Diminishing Space” in other words the space required for you to overtake is getting smaller by the second. If you say to yourself “I CAN MAKE IT” but believe me that space will disappear much faster then you allow for and the results can prove fatal. If in doubt hang back and when the space is clear then overtake.

My next point, when driving on a wet or greasy road remember that the tyres do NOT have the same grip as a dry road and that your braking is going to take a longer distance to safely stop your cycle. I would totally agree that today’s braking systems are greatly improved and far more efficient but the same danger is still there. As the adhesion between tyre and wet surface is not as good as the dry surface always keep in the fore part of your mind that the cycle you ride can in most cases be repaired. It won’t feel any pain, but you will, and sometimes your repairs can be everlasting. ‘YOU ARE NOT INFALLIBLE’.

I have ridden cycles for many years and have covered thousands of miles, and have felt the thrill and enjoyment, most of the time. There have been a couple of times I have been forced to take evasive action, which resulted in a lot of pain. I might add they were not of my making but others not looking at what they were supposed to be doing. Remember it’s better to be five minutes late in this world than years early in the next.

PETER EDNEY

Sandys

Wakely bit the hand...

April 1, 2007

Dear Sir,

I have just had the opportunity to read the infamous letter from Dr. Christine Wakely that has caused so much controversy in the community. In her second paragraph Dr. Wakely writes “Before we start destroying facilities where a great deal of resource has been so effectively utilised, the dignified thing to do is to open up debate within the population it serves”. I hear others, like Louise Jackson, Jennifer Brooks, and lately, retired nurse, Diana Williams making similar statements.

What interests me is that we hear nothing from the patients themselves. It appears to me that the above-named have told these “poor people” as they refer to them, that they need to be grouped together in a clinic rather than be integrated within the wider community. Are the protestors afraid to be treated in the same medical facilities as these poor people?

In her letter, Dr. Wakely also writes “The lack of dignity that the Premier refers to in his speech is not specific to the Medical Clinic. It is rather a symptom of the way in which the poor are treated within society in general. They have no voice, they are not empowered.” Is Dr. Wakely and others who mouth the same rhetoric therefore suggesting that the voice of the poor in Bermuda should be people like her, Jennifer Brooks and Diana Williams? My question to Dr. Wakely (if she is still residing in the island) and others is “If poor people were to be treated like those of us who are not so poor, wouldn’t they be treated by private physicians in their offices, rather than in a clinic that stigmatises them?”

Dr. Wakely questions whether “Family Practitioners of Bermuda” would be willing to treat the patients from the Hospital Clinic. If she, who is not a Bermudian, has no vested interest in this country or its people, poor or not so poor, is willing to treat these patients, why would other family practitioners, especially Bermudian doctors, not be willing to do the same thing? Is she saying that she has a social conscience while other doctors are in the business for purely material gain? Dr. Wakely also stated in her letter that the population at the clinic is being manipulated for political gain.

In other words, this woman, who was employed by the Bermuda Government which is headed by Dr. Brown, has stated that the Premier made the decision to close the clinic for political gain. For that reason alone, the Bermuda Hospitals Board had every right to ask Dr. Wakely to hand in her resignation. Dr. Wakely was biting the hand that fed her, because the clinic is funded by the Bermuda Government, not private enterprise. Dr. Wakely practised her democratic right of free speech, and as MP Derrick Burgess stated, freedom of speech has its consequences. Those of us who have spoken out in Bermuda know only too well the consequences of free speech.

Now that Dr. Wakely is not employed by the Bermuda Hospitals Board, she may consider going into private practice and offering free medical care to her former patients from the Hospital Clinic. Of course, she will seek their opinion first to ascertain whether they would prefer to have her provide their medical care rather than the clinic at the hospital. Certainly Diana Williams would be willing to offer nursing service to Dr. Wakely and Mrs. Jackson, who has had several years running a successful business could serve as Dr. Wakely’s business manager.

Maybe Jennifer Brooks would be willing to act as receptionist. I would also like to suggest that the UBP’s social hostess, Gina Spence Farmer provide entertainment and serve tea to the patients as Nurse Williams was concerned that the patients would be without somewhere to gather socially. Not only would that be democracy at work, it would also show the people of Bermuda the selfless and caring nature of those people whose voices have been the loudest with regard to the closure of the clinic.

LAVERNE FURBERT

Hamilton Parish