Letters, July 3

Story must be told

I had the privilege of being at the opening of the Nakba exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It was an emotional day for me, with mixed feelings.

I was happy because finally the history of Nakba was captured in stories told by the survivors and their families, about their displacement and how thousands of Palestinians were violently forced out of their land and homes. I was sad that so much fuss, negative propaganda, and threats had surrounded and still surround this exhibition. Why?

This ill-informed backlash is setting a dangerous precedent. When politicians, special interest groups, media, and “academia” start interfering in what stories of human rights violations are acceptable and what are not, it starts a spiral into the abyss of an inhumane worldview.

This egregious short-sightedness, aggrandized for monetary and political gains, opens the doors to fascism and compromises our democratic values, and endangers the human rights of all peoples.

We have the opportunity to honour the survivors of the Nakba and listen to their stories that for far too long have been silenced. The ‘catastrophe’ continues even today as we go about our daily lives — thousands of Palestinians and children have been killed, maimed, and are starving.

Manitoba was the first to raise the Palestinian flag, and I am grateful and proud that it is the first to acknowledge the Nakba.

Shahina Siddiqui, Winnipeg

Minister should have kept mum

Re: Minister rebukes museum on exhibition (June 30)

The most accurate statement made by Heritage Minister Marc Miller in his critique of the Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights:

“It isn’t up to me to speak to, or insert myself in, the curation of any particular exhibit.”

He would have been well-advised to follow his own advice.

Ron Menec, Winnipeg

The personal stories told in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights exhibition of uprooted Palestinian families are evocative and informative. They should be heard.

The focused exhibition is not about the stories of other peoples harmed by Middle East conflicts. It does include reference to the Hamas attacks on Israelis.

I did not, as a Jew, feel blamed for the Nakba (‘catastrophe’). It is not, antisemitic, by any definition.

Joel Kettner, Winnipeg

Health care problems persist

Re: ER concerns addressed, health minister claims (June 30)

The story indicates that the minister said that there was a loss of physician hours “after the previous government re-directed financial incentives.”

I was in active surgical practice when medicare was introduced in Manitoba in April 1969 by the Conservative government of Walter Weir and a Liberal government in Ottawa. In July 1969, the Conservative government was succeeded by the NDP government of Edward Schreyer. Since then, alternating Conservative and NDP governments in Manitoba have often blamed their predecessors for any deficiencies in medicare. Alternatively, they could blame the federal government for inadequate funding.

I retired from hospital practice in 1998. When I retired, the major concerns were long wait times in emergency departments, long wait times for non-urgent diagnostic procedures and surgery, and hospital bed tie-ups by patients waiting for placement in personal care homes. Nothing much seems to have changed. These problems are duplicated to varying degrees in all Canadian provinces.

After 57 years, shouldn’t we admit that the Canadian medicare system is not working very well? To my knowledge, Canada is the only first world country that does not have a parallel private scheme. Several of these countries have superior health-care outcomes at lower cost. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

David Brodovsky, Winnipeg

More hands, machines not enough

Re: Medical procedure wait times among Canada’s longest (July 2)

This week’s report on Manitoba’s wait times drew the obvious response: more staff, more equipment. Dr. Alon Altman is right that Manitoba’s front-line physicians manage access as best they can within the equipment and staffing they are given. That is a fair and understandable diagnosis from the people doing the work.

But it is not the whole diagnosis. Manitoba’s cardiac surgery wait time, second-longest in the country, sits inside the same report as bladder, colorectal, breast, and lung cancer surgery waits, MRI and CT waits, hip and knee replacement waits. Nearly every category is longer than the national median. That pattern spans specialties, professions, and years. A staffing shortage explains one bad number. It does not explain a pattern this wide or this old.

Capacity does move the number, for a while. Manitoba has invested in wait times before and the investment worked, until the pressure that produced the backlog returned and the gain went with it.

That is the part the staffing conversation leaves out. The problem is not that funding fails to help. It is that nothing holds the gain in place once the announcement stops being news.

More capacity is necessary, and Doctors Manitoba and the technologists’ union are right to press for it. But a service with no defined program, no named authority answerable for its outcomes, and no enforced standard has nowhere to keep what new capacity buys it. The number moves. It does not stay moved.

Manitoba’s hip fracture repair times are among the best in the country. That is not an accident. It is what happens when a pathway has a clear owner and a defined standard. The other categories in this report need the same thing — not just more hands and machines, but a program with a name, an owner, and a standard someone is answerable for meeting.

Alan H. Menkis, MD, Winnipeg

Canada, first and foremost

I am both stunned and angry that Americans such as U.S. ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra and others in their current administration have the audacity to declare that Canada’s stance of ‘Canada first’ is unfair to U.S. producers while having proudly stood by earlier declaring ‘America first’ was a good and valid policy.

Such ridiculous hubris! Are they truly so unaware how two-faced that is? We are not your dumping ground, America. Canada doesn’t want your hormone-and-additive-and-antibiotic-filled chicken, beef, pork and dairy products. You do not meet our food quality standards. We will not permit tainted produce and products to flow into our food systems.

Raise your standards before asking us to accept this into our country. Do not expect us to take your goods while you block and penalize ours. You can blare out your ‘America first’ policy in your political rallies, but you cannot then declare to other countries that their similar policies are unfair to you. Wake up!

Linda Ross-Mansfield, Winnipeg