a

—

a

Friday, February 27, 1976

> 48

20°

VOL. 38, No. 8

eibBUNE

Following reports of cutbacks in
s0vernment funding of health
Services, the president of the B.C.
Medical Association has called
Upon the government to take a
| hard second look’”’ at its hospital
| Policy,

Dr. William Ibbots said that if

government is unwilling to do
So “we must assume the worst —
that this government indeed places
health at a very low priority and is
Saying ‘to hell with the sick’.”
_dbbots went on to elaborate what

the worst” would mean for the
People. of B.C. He indicated that

Medicare premiums would rise by
200 to 300 per cent, that the per day
cost of a hospital bed would go
from the current rate of $1 to $5,
and that charges for emergency
visits would jump to $7 or $8 from
$2 per visit.
Ibbots made his comments in
reaction to premier Bill Bennett’s
Friday report on the state of the
province’s financial situation, in
which ‘‘one of the clearest im-
plications” was that spending on
health care would have to be
restrained. ‘I have to infer from

what Bennett said tonight that

health care, particularly hospital
health care, could be victimized by
some pretty. severe fiscal
restraints in the near future,”
Ibbots said.

Ibbot’s comments came on the
heels of suggestions that Van-
couver General Hospital, the
major teaching and referral
hospital in the province, was
considering the closing of up to 50
per cent of its beds for the summer
months in order to remain. within
the budgetary restraints the new
Socred government is expected to
introduce.

Reaction to the VGH closures
was so adverse that plans to close
beds and cut back in patient care
were supposedly dropped by the
hospital administration. This
apparently is not so, according to
information given to the Tribune
by senior personnel at Vancouver
General.

The VGH sources indicate that
the hospital is going ahead with a
“contingency plan’’ to reduce
direct patient costs, and that this
plan will be implemented if the
scheduled meeting February 27
between health minister Bob

McClelland and senior VGH ad-
ministrative staff does not produce
extra funding for the hospital.
The cutback proposals include a
drastic reduction in actual direct
patient ‘care, including a
stipulation that nursing costs must
be reduced by five per cent overall.
This represents the elimination of
130 full time nursing positions.
The hospital administration plan
provides for nursing staff reduc-
tions in all areas of the hospital
except Centennial Pavilion. The
Children’s Health Centre will lose
See HOSPITAL, pg. 12

AR SE Sn cree ER

In February, 1961, the people of Angola took up the armed struggle

sitinst colonialism. This month they marked the 15th. anniversary of
‘heir fight for independence. Photo shows working people taking part

Wie. demonstration in Luanda to mark their inde
Ories over pro-imperialist forces.

renitish Columbia is not the only
and Mee in Canada where hospital
Sever €alth services are under
th € attack. In Ontario the
Shenas Tory government has
hos ed a Sweeping attack on
Spital services. The Ontario
Shes of health, Frank Miller,
een barnstorming the
€ closing hospitals in his
ni His excuse has been that the
Of health services have risen
Sharply

ae week the research depart-
nt of the Ontario Federation of
Or issued a _ statement
unking the Ontario govern-

Mm «6 .
e €nt’s “reason” for health service
Utbacks_

; The statement prepared by OFL
apd director John Eleen and
an rights representative

rely Acheson says that according

pr OVine

Sta - Provincial government’s own
h pecs on the cost of Ontario’s
i h program “some convoluted
€ was used to justify the

pendence and recent

“The main point that stands out
about premier Bill Bennett’s ‘State
of the Province’ speech and the
accompanying Clarkson-Gordon
report, is that it presents B.C.’s
financial position in the blackest
terms,” Nigel Morgan, provincial
leader of the Communist Party,
said Monday.

“Premier Bennett’s highly
political interpretation is obviously
intended to justify his Socred
policies — to cut back on services
to people while upping hydro, gas,
ferry and transit, and preparing
the way for local tax increases and
possibly a hoist in the Sales Tax,”
Morgan charged. ‘‘More than half
the alleged deficit of $541 million is
by admission of premier Bennett to
be due to political decisions of his
Social Credit government.

“There is an old saying —
‘figures don’t lie’, but liars can do
some fancy figuring,” he said.
“There may well be some deficit
problems, but what do we expect
when on one item — provincial
timber. sales — revenues fell
during 1975 from $135 million to
only $35 million as a result of

government’s excuses for health
spending cuts.”’

The statement charges that the
government’s claim of spiralling
health costs as an excuse for the
cutbacks is not supported by the
facts as reflected in the govern-
ment’s own figures. _

For example, the OFL shows
that with a 50 per cent growth in
the gross provincial product
(GPP) from 1971 to 1974, health
expenditure for the same period
only increased by 36 per cent. Asa
percentage of the GPP health care
expenses were, starting from 1961
for comparison, 3.9 per cent, 4.72
per cent in 1971 and 4.23 per cent in
1974. .

Canada as a whole hea th care
oH as a percentage of the gross
national product (GNP) actually
dropped from 13.6 per cent in 1971
to 12 per cent in 1974. In other
words in 1971 — 21.7 cents of the tax
dollar was spent on health care. In

1974 the figure dropped to 19 cents.

The source of information for the
OFL study of Miller’s spiralling
health cost claims came mostly
from official provincial govern-
ment finance catalogues and
similar federal documents, said
Eleen. The OFL research
department concluded that the
public is “being conned into
believing that health costs have
risen more than they have just to
fit in with the government’s efforts
to put health care and social ser-
vices back into the 19th century.”

Right wing provincial govern-
ments from one end of Canada to
the other are driving to cut back on
public services as part of the at-
tempt to shift the growing crisis in
Canada onto the backs of the
people. Hospitals and health
services are one of the first
casualties in this drive. But in
Ontario, as in B.C. the provincial
government is running into
growing public opposition to their
“slash-public-service-costs”” cam-

paign.

lumber marketing conditions
which declined drastically, par-
ticularly in the U.S. last year.
“What is needed is not more
financial gimmickry from the
premier; more juggling to make
the poor poorer to help the rich get
richer, but constructive, positive
action. Action .to. create higher
standards of living instead of in-

_ creasing taxes and driving people

to the wall,” Morgan said.

“Notably, premier Bennett’s
accounting ignored completely the
millions of Columbia River debt
that resulted from W.A.C. Ben-
nett’s giveaway agreement that
saddled B.C. with more than $800
million in dam costs in excess of
returns from the United States,”’
Morgan charged.

“Neither should the hydro deficit
of $32 millions Clarkson-Gordon
included, be allowed on the
Columbia. Neither should the ICBC
deficit, which Clarkson-Gordon
included as ‘cash basis’, which
actually provides $175 million for
‘future years’. And why should the

$65 million ‘housing fund’ — set
aside for future housing, but not
used by the previous ad-

ministration — be included as an
expenditure? Or the so-called
actuarial deficit for pensions,
which is not a deficit at all but
simply provision for future con-
tributions for improvements in
pensions to come?” Morgan said.

“To allow premier Bennett to
take the course he has indicated, of
cutting services to people and
increasing the tax load, would be a
disaster for the people of B.C.,”
Morgan concluded.

“The new government has to be

brought to account. And nothing
short of mass public pressure —
common action by the trade union
movement, the NDP, pensioners,
the Communist Party, municipal
and community organizations — is
going to prevent the massive in-
crease in insurance rates which the

See MORGAN; pg. 12

Q.E. sendoff
planned for
York parley

The Ad Hoc Committee for a
World Disarmament Conference in
Vancouver has selected three
delegates out of the 16 allotted to
Canada, to attend an International
Forum on the Arms Race opening
at York University, York, England
on March 28. The three delegates
named are: C. P. (Paddy) Neale,
secretary-treasurer, Vancouver &
District Labor Council; Ben
Metcalfe, freelance journalist and
broadcaster; and the Rev. Robert
Burrows of the United church.

To assist in raising funds to send
these three delegates, a public
meeting is being organized for
Monday, March 22 at the Queen
Elizabeth Playhouse, at 8 p.m. One
of the features of the meeting will
be a showing of the award winning
BBC documentary film, “‘The War
Game,” as well as the introduction
of the delegates. Prominent
speakers and entertainers are also
expected to attend. Admission is
free and a collection will be taken.

ICBC

CAMPAIGN TO ROLL BACK
RATES CONTINUES—See Pg. 3