Oct 24, 2013


Re: Northbrook Ambulance Base

The Northbrook base - “provides a vital service for residents of the northern part of our county..(Northbrook Ambulance Base Official Opening, Oct 17/13). No! It does not!

In fact, Northbrook is geographically near the centre of the county. It is not “northern”. The Northbrook base serves Denbigh about as well as it would Napenee – basically, not at all. Both places are about 30 minutes from Northbrook. An ambulance whose very best response time is 30 minutes is not providing a vital service.

The situation is full of rich ironies:

  • the county executives responsible for the ambulance service are all on the Ontario Sunshine List. Combined they earn $396,046.19.
  • a group of dedicated volunteers ran the Denbigh Area Ambulance Service for 20 years from 1982 to 2002.
  • by 2008 the county was hiring consultants, at vast expense, to report that the Denbigh base was not “economically justifiable”

Under the capable guidance of the county Sunshine Boys, in just over 5 years the ambulance expenses had blown through the roof. Apparently these worthies couldn't be trusted to run a lemonade stand. They couldn't even decide, without spending tens of thousands on consultants, that they had allowed expenses to get out of hand.

Now we are asked to believe that the county “provides a vital service”. Balderdash. The volunteers provided a vital service for 20 years. The county is proceeding to methodically destroy it but cynically trying to tell us otherwise. The Sunshine Boys have been outright trying to kill the Denbigh Ambulance since 2008. In 2011 they "recommended" closing the Denbigh base entirely. They only succeeded in having the service cut to 12 hours. Does anyone believe that they won't be back to finish the job?

Some people want to abolish the Senate. Abolishing the county would be much more worthwhile. At least the senate is not ruining essential services with life and death consequences.

To rub salt in the wound, the country has never made any attempt to remedy the situation. They have never even tried to restart the volunteer service. The fact that it is known to be successful and cost effective apparently just doesn't register with the Sunshine Boys. The county has never tried to have the regulations changed so that First Responders (the fire department ) would be allowed to transport patients if, in their judgement, delay would be life threatening. But, I guess that when you are a Sunshine Boy you only have expensive toys. Volunteers are just too far beneath your pay scale to be considered.

In 2008 the Denbigh community produced a 25 page position paper that articulated 22 separate positions and requested that the county create a “standing advisory committee” on emergency services that included members of the public. To show its appreciation of the community's efforts, the county did not even so much as acknowledge receipt.

The county's mission statement says, in part, “The County of Lennox & Addington is a service-oriented organization, dedicated to respecting and upholding the rights of all individuals, and committed to the delivery of high quality, efficient, courteous and responsive municipal services”.

Courteous? Responsive? In a pig's eye.

Paul Isaacs


A Public Thank You

Each spring, flowers appear at the cenotaph in Sharbot Lake. These flowers are attended to all year long, making the cenotaph a eye pleasing site. These flowers are then removed just before Remembrance Day. Until this year, no one knew who was doing this. A little detective work by Larry Chiarot, found that Nick Whalen (no relation) was the individual who was quietly going about making Sharbot Lake a little nicer. He had never told anyone that he was responsible for this, and so I think he deserves a public thank you.

David Whalen, President, Branch 425


Thanksgiving

When you sat down to your traditional Thanksgiving meal, I hope you took the time to bow your head and thank the Giver of all your blessings.. Canadians have so much to be full of thanks to God. Beside all the good food on our thanksgiving table, we enjoy the freedom of speech, religion and assembly. Freedom from wars, starvation and insurrection and one of the highest

standard of living among the nations of the world. His blessings are so numerous that we could fill this whole page with the list from His bountiful hand. When I think of thanksgiving and the Giver of every blessing, I really feel sorry for the atheist and the agnostic who have so many blessings to be thankful for, but no one to be thankful to. Perhaps they thank their impersonal, non-living lucky star, or mother nature, which are poor substitutes for

the living, forgiving, omniscient God. Man is inherently a believer in the supernatural, so when he denies or doubts the existence of the almighty God, he usually replaces Him with some other so-called supernatural power; making a god out of nature, or some star. God has communicated to us through the Bible. It tells us of His nature, how to worship Him and how to serve our fellowman, but we have no reliable book to tell us how stars, or nature communicate to us. The worship of stars and nature, because there is no objective information given, must be totally subjective, but we can have confidence in the objective communication from God in the Bible. Whether theist or atheist, I hope you had a happy giving of thanks.

John Wallace

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