A Window on Westmount
Ville Marie

david nicholson says

11 November 2000 Superhospitals not top priority, poll indicates Ranks least urgent in survey AARON DERFEL

An overwhelming majority of Montreal Island residents do not consider the proposed superhospital by the McGill University Health Centre to be a top priority, a poll made public yesterday reveals.

Only 14 per cent of survey respondents indicated that the McGill superhospital, as well as a similar project being planned by the Centre Hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal, are urgent necessities.

The survey of 1,000 Quebecers was carried out by the CROP polling firm at the request of the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice. The Coalition is staunchly opposed to the $1.2-billion McGill superhospital, arguing that the money should be spent renovating existing hospitals and improving health care.

"Perhaps we could afford nice new hospital buildings sometime in the next 10 years, but we have to build up other resources first, like home care and long-term care," Coalition spokesman Dr. James Farquhar said.

According to the poll, 34 per cent of Montreal Island respondents said they did not consider the two superhospitals to be a priority at all. In addition, 21 per cent indicated the projects were a low priority; 26 per cent said they were a medium priority; and 14 per cent, a high priority. Five per cent had no opinion or refused to answer the question.

Dr. Nicolas Steinmetz, chief planner of the McGill superhospital, said he actually found some of the poll results encouraging.

"The survey points out that, basically, about 40 per cent of the people in Montreal are in support of this - and that's without any context," Steinmetz said, alluding to the fact that 26 per cent indicated the projects were a medium priority and 14 per cent a high priority.

4 October 2000

P.E.Trudeau

29 September 2000

Wednesday-Night Says farewell to
Pierre E. Trudeau

Wednesday Night Salon # 970

the Summons

Hugh Scott

Tuesday 26 September 2000 MUHC cost is soaring Super hospital's price now pegged at $1.2 billion ... MUHC chairman David Culver and executive director Dr. Hugh Scott casually mentioned a new estimate: $1.1 to $1.2 billion. [What is a $billion when Bernard Landry can risk it on the chip maker that has a high risk of going under.. The hospital will never run out of guests ..US DTN]

David Culver OC

David Culver "Super-Hospital" Chairman is in Japan this week

Dr. Marc Roper

Please see our MUHC & medial page

Dr. Hugh Scott & OECD Ambassador Kimon Valaskakis

Wed #965 August 30, 2000 Me Marie Cormier re-intro Hamish Macaulay on RUSSIA... for latest Russia news Rev. David Oliver.. Dr. Mark Roper on CMA in SK Jill Hugessen ..Fraser Institute ... OECD Ambassador Kimon Valaskakis.. "Global Governance" The Club of Athens is an alternative "Action Tank" .. "Global Republic" ..Alan Mass, Misha Crnobrnja ..Mafia

click to play John Ciaccia

Wednesday 27 September 2000 MUHC price tag targeted Critics fear superhospital will be huge money drain .. $1.2-billion hospital complex drew critics "If they continue to pursue this madness, and if the government follows along, everyone's going to suffer," said Dr. Paul Saba, head of the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice. JEFF HEINRICH; Elizabeth Thompson

Dr. Guy Stanley

10/4/00 The Battle Of Boston Gore ahead? ..Palestinians march on Jewish settlement in Gaza Strip Early this morning, hundreds of Palestinians began marching up the coastal road of the Gaza Strip in the direction of the settlement of Netzarim.

From Westmount Explained based on the public council meeting of October 2.

1.1 Pierre Trudeau: The meeting began with a resolution of regret followed by a time of silence to mark the passing of former prime minister Trudeau and a moment of respect on his passing. The mayor said that any permanent monument should wait at least a year; a citizen suggested that in due time the council might consider a rose garden as a memorial.

2.7 MUHC delay: A committee had been formed to pool resources of Westmount, Montréal and the MUHC to work on the proposed project, it was reported. Westmount's representatives were Cllr K. Marks, the director of planning and a member of the A&P committee. Little was happening at present as the MUHC was still assessing its needs.

2.10 Healthy City Project is planning more breakfast meetings; the environment committee invited council to an October 25 talk, "Air Quality and its Impact on Respiratory Health," by community health specialist Dr Louis Drouin.

Pease note our sell on NT last week
at $84 click for chart

Rex Murphy on the Politics: watching the same old play? July 13, 2000 How far have we come?

Wednesday Night Salon #970

PROLOGUE

Yvette Biondi, Frédéric Laurin, & Dr. Kimon Valaskakis

Sam Totah is active in the opposition to the destruction of the Christian Scientist church at the corner of Wilder Penfield and Côte des Neiges. Through this activity, he has met Sandra Cohen Rose and her husband, Colin, whom he introduced. Sandra, a dietician, is currently writing a book on Art Deco which will include a chapter on the Trudeau house on Pine Avenue. Colin is a cardiologist and professor.

Yvette Biondi, proud mother, re-introduced her son Frédéric Laurin, who has recently completed his Masters degree at Strasbourg University, and will soon be working as an industrial development commissioner in Paris.

Katleen Félix

Guy Stanley re-introduced Katleen Félix, a former and "one of his brightest students" who now works with CGI.

Dr. Hugh Scott introduced his wife, Paule Ouimet, a professional fundraiser whom he met at McGill.

MONEY, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE - FRANCE'S LATEST POLITICAL SCANDAL

Paris shrugged off the resignation of France’s finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (59), to hit a new all-time high, ending the week...Nov 6th 1999 ..robs the French government of its foremost surreptitious reformer ...Even as the IMF’s favourable findings were being trumpeted, so was the news that the Paris prosecution service was asking for DSK to be formally investigated for fraud. The stay in Vietnam was curtailed in favour of an early meeting back in Paris with the prime minister, Lionel Jospin. Two days later, Mr Strauss-Kahn, normally so suave but now simply grim, stood before the cameras and his dispirited, almost shell-shocked staff to hand in his cards “because of morality and a sense of responsibility. For me, it is inconceivable that a minister can stay in office when there is the slightest hint of a judicial procedure that might affect the whole government.”

Andrew Cross

...the polyglot Mr Strauss-Kahn, fluent in German, English and Spanish, and with a (third) wife, Anne Sinclair, who until 1997 had her own political chat-show on television, was the perfect man to smooth-talk journalists and placate suspicious foreigners. Who else could be on easy terms with the mutually incompatible Gordon Brown of Britain and Oskar Lafontaine of Germany (who even out of office has kept in touch)? Perhaps it helps to have had an academic past, writing articles with titles such as “The savings-consumption arbitrage in French econometric models” and “Saving and social security: a tentative survey”.

Mr Strauss-Kahn denies any wrongdoing. He has stepped down, he says, to clear his name.

This affair follows a damaging trail of political scandals that has now touched two ex-prime ministers (one a conservative, Alain Juppé, who is still under investigation, the other a Socialist, Laurent Fabius, who has been acquitted); at least 30 ex-ministers; scores of mayors (including the current conservative mayor of Paris, Jean Tiberi) and members of parliament; and half-a-dozen party leaders.

In short, Mr Strauss-Kahn will be missed. Just before he bowed out, he had predicted: “If we don’t do anything stupid, France can enjoy rather a long period of growth—six or seven years or so.” What a pity if his own mistakes risk stunting that growth.

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At last, they are waging war

Sep 28th 2000 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

For his part, Mr Strauss-Kahn naturally pleads innocence. Although he admits the “implausibility” of his defence, he says he never actually watched the video, that he cannot remember where he put it, and that in any event he is interested in economics, not political shenanigans.

Maybe so. But Mr Strauss-Kahn is already under formal investigation for false accounting in his dealings with a student insurance group—an affair that prompted his resignation from the government in November 1999—and also for his possible involvement in the “Elf affair”. Elf is the then state-owned oil company that was used to make illicit payments during the era of the cynical President Mitterrand.

Now Mr Strauss-Kahn faces further problems. At the least, he had possession of material which, as a minister, he was obliged by the constitution to hand to the authorities. At the most, he corruptly traded a lower tax bill for his own political prospects. Not surprisingly, his party colleagues are rapidly seizing their distance from him, and Mr Jospin is primly declaring that “my conception of public life has always led me not to employ scandal for the political debate.”

That makes Mr Jospin rather different from most in his profession. One explanation for the abysmally low turnout for the referendum on September 24th may be that the voters were fed up with the lot of them.

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THE MUHC AND RELATED HEALTHCARE ISSUES

We need informed consent to be able to support the plan of MUHC to acquire the Glen Yards site and develop the "super hospital" there, at a cost of about $1 billion. The Hospital has replaced the Church as the most symbolic of institutions and therefore people's reactions to any change, let alone a totally new project, are highly emotional.

Magda

The new MUHC location is excellent, close to several expressways. In the medical field they talk about the "Golden 60 minutes" following any accident or trauma. The new location could save as much as 15 minutes for the time to get to Emergency.

However, the public reaction to the development cost of the MUHC (now up from $600M to $1.2B) and the delays (current estimate for completion 2005-2006) is to question the need for the new structure.

Bruce Burnett

Why not spend that money on rehabilitating the old structures? Because, in many cases, the structures were not built to meet current practices and equipment (elevators, for example, do not have the capacity for load factors of today's mobile equipment). The medical technology that we have been able to develop exceeds our wildest dreams, but it is at a cost - and some of that cost relates to infrastructures. McGill needs some $300 million to renovate and improve the medical research facilities.

In the cost estimate of just over $1 billionfor the MUHC Super Hospital, no allowance has been made for revenues generated by the disposal of the current five hospital buildings. All five are attractive development properties as they have great locations, with fine views over the city and the mountain. If they were re-developed into condos and mini-communities, then they might well realize some $600 million.

How would Montrealers react to a plan similar to the one proposed for the financing of new hospital facilities in Ottawa where $232M was contributed by the city taxpayers to the health system?

Forty percent more medical research is carried out in Montreal than in Toronto. The focus today is on disease care rather than health care.

There is a curious research-related ethical issue which has been reported recently- the number of human body parts (presumably required for medical biopsies) found in a Halifax warehouse. These samples may or may not have been taken with the consent of the individuals or their parents/guardians.

The difference in the price of medications between the States and Canadian is often a factor of two or more, and this why U.S. seniors are coming by bus loads to Canada to fill their prescriptions. This is due partly to patent protection for the pharmaceutical companies (20 year patents), and partly to Liberal Party policy. What is needed is a worldwide pricing policy.

Recent reports indicate that it cost $600,000 to train a brain surgeon, and that there is a high probability that, once trained, they will leave for the States. 92% of McGill MDs have been offered jobs in the States. But there is also a counter-movement of qualified medical personnel who return to Canada because of the vastly superior quality of life in our cities. Nevertheless, at this time, our Operating Rooms are not being used to capacity due to the lack of anesthetists and OR nurses. Patients are dying because of the excessive waiting periods. Can physicians intervene to allow their patients to queue jump? Yes, some do, but not for personal profit.

Dr. Mark Roper, Bruce Burnett & John Ciaccia

The current health care system is costing Canadians about $80 billion a year, and, while the cost per capita is one of the highest in the world (after the U.S.), according to the recently released WHO survey of medical systems around the world, France came in first, Canada was at #30 and the States at #33. The WHO report did point out that many of the best health care systems have some form of parallel, private medical system to allow those who can afford it to get faster service. This reduces the waiting lists for everyone.

CONCLUSION

Maclean's Magazine has released the fifth in its series of Health Reports. The October 23, 2000 issue  focuses on the health of Canadians in different regions across the country.

Maclean's makes the point that emergency care is generally great but overall hospitals tend to kill more people than they save. The probable reason being that potentially fatal drugs and procedures get administered for innocuous, non-emergent conditions. This experience from Saskatchewan adds to the growing evidence that building more hospitals (even "super") will not make people healthier.
thank you Colin Rose

Being in the right place at the right time makes a difference, as this week's cover story makes clear. The second annual ranking of the health of Canadians, based on Statistics Canada's sweeping surveys, shows that the healthiest communities are clustered around Toronto and Vancouver.

It is not a matter of geography. Some key factors behind better health are incomes, education and, interestingly, the presence of recent immigrants. Among their many benefits to Canada, newcomers generally have the effect of raising the level of health in a community. In health care, conventional wisdom often gets turned on its ear.

From the Globe

..People in the 35-to-44 age group consume about $1,000 a year in health-care costs, those in the 65-to-74 bracket a little more than $4,000 per capita, and those in the 75-to-84 group about $8,000 per capita. ..thanks to Colin Rose

From the Gazette

May 1999

As MUHC chairman David Culver observed last week, Montreal's complement of hospitals is among the oldest on the continent. This city hasn't seen the construction of a new hospital in more than 40 years. Think of how medical technology and treatment have changed over that time. The evolution of modern medicine has left the MUHC's hospitals looking like relics from a bygone age. New doesn't always mean better. But the old - are beyond renovation.

...on one campus will lower operating costs and save on the maintenance of older buildings ... Dr. Scott points out, the McGill-affiliated hospitals are not just patient-care facilities; they have an important teaching and research function as well. They are a major reason Montreal ranks first among Canadian cities as a medical-research centre. ..we need to offer them the best, most internationally competitive facilities possible. Capital investments are one-time expenditures; operating costs recur every year.

27 September 2000 "If they continue to pursue this madness, and if the government follows along, everyone's going to suffer," said Dr. Paul Saba, head of the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice.

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