Looking from afar, I seriously have to wonder what is happening in British Columbia with respect to the delivery of emergency medical care and what has become of the fundamental concept of ministerial responsibility.

The recurrent and chronic ER chaos in Fraser Health, the truly frightening frequency of rural ER closures and now the rather disappointing news of increasing rates of patients leaving emergency departments without benefit of medical assessment.

If the Canadian values encompassed in the Canada Health Act are to mean anything, anything at all, then surely that means that when you or a loved one are met with a life-threatening illness or injury the system is there for you.

Sadly, this does not appear to be true in B.C., and the change of health ministers appears to have had no effect.

The B.C. government is simply shuffling the chairs on the sinking ship.

Alan Drummond M.D.

Perth, Ont.

With all the extreme increase in new condos and housing construction in B.C. and on Vancouver Island, have the councillors and Premier David Eby given thought as to our now critically urgent health-care crisis?

We are already in the health-care abyss. There are not enough doctors for the existing population.

Emergency rooms in our hospitals cannot accommodate people, so they are going away without being seen. We need two more hospitals just to cope with the rising population.

Instead of focusing on the housing boom, which will rake in untold money for the councils and government in property taxes, insurance for the insurance companies, et al, our critical health crisis should have been top of the list.

Diana Atkin

Gordon Head

I support the need for expansion and improvements to Saanich’s operations centre and public works yard, yet I added my name on the alternate approval process petition and wrote the mayor and council to express my view of how it appears to have come about: Virtually dovetailed to the Quadra-McKenzie debacle that dominated the discussion.

My letter was accepted weeks before the end of the petition. I have not received a response to my questions regarding the separation of the two projects.

We need to improve the operations centre, but Save Our Saanich adroitly tied both projects together in a manner that all but guaranteed the AAP would fail.

The focus became not on the operations centre, but on bus lanes, bike lanes, towers and general disaster proposed for Quadra-McKenzie, a crowded main throughfare through all points of the compass that would create a decade of chaos if allowed to proceed.

I support the need to improve the operations centre, but do not support the concomitant disaster that is also being........

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