No to substation in park

September 16, 2008

Dear Sir,

Re: Application by BELCO to build a substation in Par-la-Ville Park

As a resident and member of the Bermuda National Trust, I object most strongly to a substation or any other encroachment in Par-la-Ville Park.

This park is (with Victoria Park) a lung in the midst of the city. The trees and shrubs provide a pleasant vista for locals and visitors alike. They also help to absorb the carbon dioxide emitted from the vehicles in the city and in exchange give off life-giving oxygen. The park is also a pleasing spot to enjoy a packed lunch for those taking a break from their place of work at midday.

I realise that all the new construction underway will require electricity and would suggest that the substation be built either in the City Hall car park or below the surface of Par-la-Ville car park on a level with Par-la-ville Road or Church Street, or perhaps a site on the grounds of the lately constructed Session House car park.

REGINALD A. R. SMITH

Pembroke

I'll miss Sangita

September 22, 2008

Dear Sir,

It was with sadness that I heard the news of the departure of Sangita Iyer from the staff of the Bermuda Broadcasting Company. Her personality, her dedication to research and factual journalism were refreshing and valuable. She will be sorely missed and I wish her well in all of her future endeavours.

DON MOORE

Smith's

Poor bus service

September 18, 2008

Dear Sir,

I am writing to convey my complete and total disgust with the Spanish Point bus route. For the last three weeks I have been at the bus stop with my son, who attends West Pembroke School, waiting for the bus that leaves Spanish Point at 8:22 and travels along North Shore to Hamilton. This bus has NOT turned up for several days out of those three weeks. On the days that the bus has decided to show up, it has been at 8:3?:40 at the earliest. I have no choice but to get on the bus with my son, as his school bell rings at 8:45. If we are fortunate, the bus actually goes along the scheduled route, i.e. North Shore to Hamilton. However, on most of these days my son has had to run over the hill across from Dandy Town because the bus driver then goes along St. John's Road to Hamilton. When I ask if the bus is going on North Shore, the answer is invariably NO. When I question the whereabouts of the 8:22 bus, the bus driver is either ignorant to the fact that it never came or is just plain ignorant.

On any given morning, there are at least five persons waiting for the 8:22 bus and we are all extremely irritated and have lost all confidence in the public transport system. We are being encouraged to use public transport. The price of parking in Hamilton has increased in an attempt to further encourage people to use public transport. However, if public transport is unreliable what are we supposed to do then? There is no way in the world we should have to wait up to 20 minutes for a bus to arrive every morning (it is not a one-off thing) and there is no way that my son should have to run over that long hill every morning in an attempt to get to school on time after waiting a half-hour for a bus!

I have had enough of the totally unreliable Spanish Point bus service and I am writing in the hopes that something is done about this service as soon as possible. The people of Spanish Point deserve better!

STRANDED IN SPANISH POINT

Too many caesareans

September 18, 2008

Dear Sir,

I read with great interest the comments made by Messrs. Outerbridge and Wilmot, two of Bermuda's finest medical practitioners, in a letter entitled "We have a high standard" (September 8, 2008). In their letter they sought to defend Bermuda's infant mortality rate which they claimed was 'very low'. However, the comment that compelled me to put pen to paper focused on the caesarean section rate here on the island, which they identified as hovering at around thirty one percent. They stated, quite proudly it seemed, that this places us on a par with the mighty USA which they appear to be suggesting, must be a good thing. Not so, according to any number of reputable studies.

The Americans lag far behind every other advanced capitalist nation in the area of maternity care. In fact, many of these nations, such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Japan, are making a concerted effort to further reduce their caesarean section rates, in recognition of the fact that some of these surgical interventions may well be unnecessary. Furthermore, the United States ranks twenty-fourth for infant mortality, despite spending more per capita on health care then any other country in the world. Clearly, their health care system in general, and their system of maternity care in particular, is far from being the proverbial 'gold standard'. As such, there is definitely no cause for celebration if we find ourselves keeping company with them Yankees

In terms of raw numbers, the 31 percent caesarean section rate means that each year, of the roughly 840 women who give birth on the island, 260 of them will have their bellies slit open, presumably because there is simply no other way to liberate the precious little darlings from their mothers' wombs.

Now, I'm not a doctor — indeed, the extent of my knowledge of the inner workings of the human body is decidedly limited — but the figure seemed a wee bit high. So I decided to check another source (you know we onions love to seek knowledge from foreign sources!) I went all the way to the top of the food chain: the United Nations — specifically, the World Health Organisation (WHO). The WHO is responsible for keeping the benighted minions, languishing in all four corners of the free world, hale and hearty. Well, I was shocked to discover that this august institution strongly recommends that all regions should aim for a caesarean rate that does not exceed ten to fifteen percent of all deliveries.

No more than 'ten to fifteen percent'! Gasp! I was dumbstruck. I struggled to make sense of what appeared to be two very different and conflicting pieces of information. According to the WHO, our crack team of medical practitioners should only be subjecting (at most) 126 women annually to the major abdominal surgery procedure that we euphemistically refer to as the 'c-section'.

The obvious question emerges: why the disparity? If we accept that the WHO may be onto something that has everything to do with optimal outcomes for both mother and baby (note: I also learnt that when the fifteen percent marker is exceed, the mortality rate for birthing mothers sharply increases as well), it stands to reason that one of three possible explanations can be advanced in order to understand why we have fallen so far short of the mark.

Firstly, the learned men and women who daily ply their trade in King Edward's bustling maternity ward are simply unaware of the research that led the learned men and women of the WHO to their startling conclusions. If this is the case, then they need only embark upon an intensive campaign of re-education that will bring them up to speed as quickly as possible and allow them to uphold the principles of the Hippocratic oath so beautifully encapsulated in the oft-cited phrase 'do no harm'.

Secondly, and more disturbingly, the doctors are merely following established hospital protocol, which has everything to do with questionable obstetric tradition and nothing whatsoever to do with best practice. In other words, 'we do it this way because it has always been done this way'. When medical arrogance is married to client ignorance of what optimal maternity care ought to look like, the likelihood of abuse increases exponentially. If this is the case, an aggressive campaign of advocacy on the part of birthing parents must be undertaken to ensure that they are given all of the information that they require to become truly informed and empowered consumers.

Thirdly, there is some congenital uterine abnormality which effectively eliminates vaginal birth as a viable option for a significant portion of the island's birthing mothers. If this turns out to be confirmed by legitimate research, then the best that we can hope for is the intervention of divine providence as the ultimate arbiter of survival for both mother and baby.

I suspect that some combination of the first and second points has led to the less than ideal service presently provided at KEMH.

Hopefully, we who would dare to conceive will choose to pursue a given course of action based upon reliable information, rather than ignorance and fear. In addition, I am optimistic that those to whom we have entrusted our labouring bodies will do their utmost to ensure that the service that they provide is truly representative of the highest standards of maternity care available anywhere in the world.

COLWYN BURCHALL JR.

Devonshire