Ontario Community Newspapers

Whitby Free Press, 27 Apr 1972, p. 1

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Whitby Volume 2, Number 17 FREE HOME DE1.IVERY (Voce .f the County Town) s Thursday, April 27, 1972 Council SeIIing Out t's MeremInts A comm i tment from council for a m un icipal complex on the controver- sial Rossland Road site will constitute "a sell-out of the merchants in down- t o w n W h i t b y, "charged Councillor R o bert Attersley during a heated de- bate on the issue Monday night. Rem i nding council that the mayor had publ icly announced plans for a 'ne w c entre' on Rossland Road, the o p p o s ing representative of the west ward was explicit in voicing an opinion that by taking the municipal complex to Rossland Road, the members are ad- mitting they are taking the core out of the downtown. "98% o f a il1 o t her municipalities i n c I u d i ng our next door neighbours started with their own buildings when they began to redevelop, " he said. Then, referring to the contents of a report recently submitted by the Central Ontario Joint Planning Board, Situation at Public attention created by the m e e t ing between Whi tby Psychiatric H o s p i tal employees and a committee s tanding for Ontario Heal th Minister D r . R i ch ard Potter has made for a very tense and difficult situation at the hospital, an RNA told the Whitby Free Press on Wednesday. "In a meeting called soon after the Whitby's Own Howard Hughes Whitby has i t s own counterpart to the ever evasive Howard Hughes. In fact, theWhitbycounterpart can outdo the latter with his relish for seclusion, a c c o r d i n g to one acquaintance who says "even employees don't get to see this guy. " The m y s t e r y m an, whose family resideat a Whitby address, is repor- ted to be running his business remote control fashion from a base somewhere in the Bahamas. He is not, as we original ly thought, s h e e r fabrication on the part ofour information source. Through fur ther checks we discov- e r ed that a man such as the one des- cribeddoes exist, and the mysterious out-of-sight life he prefers to lead is indeed more fact than fiction. Allegedly one of the key people be- hind the Iroquois Park theme, his name is being withheld on the request of our source. -A he said that Whitby has the largest n umber of vacant stores in the area. These vacancies could increase ten Whitby ttersley t i mes if the core moves to Rossland Road, he warned. Q u e s t i o n ing the direction of the down town action committee, he ex- pressed aview that the committee was intended to study downtown redevelop- ment. Againemphasizinghis objections to the p r o p osed move, he cited, "If we take the core out of the downtown, we are admitting our own lack of faith in the present core, but saying, if any- one else wants to spend money in the downtown they may do so. " Attersley, the strongest councillor objector to the Rossland Road site for th e muni c i pal complex, termed the proposed move "a sellI -out of the down- town merchants who would in turn be d i s c ouraged from spending money in t h e d o wntown, and said, "I am dead a g a i n st the municipal building being built there. " Hospital Extremely Tense Queen's Park incident, the names of several employees were brought out, andnow wetre waiting for the boom to be lowered, " he said. News of unrest at the Whitby hos- pi ta I was made public earl ier in the week when Dr. Manuel Vasquez, Staff P resident claimed in a release to the media that 90% of the professional staff at the hospital are in opposition with a reorganization to be implemented May 1. Thereorganization is being justif- iedby administration as the first step in a p r o p o sed five year plan which w i1l 1 b r i n g the institution closer to the community and thus provide it with a better mental heal th service. Bu t t he major portion of the pro- fessional staff who work in close prox- i m i ty wi th patients in the day-to-day operation of the hospital are alarmed f o r the w el1 f are of patients because the reorganization move was made by a d m i n i s tration wi thout consultation withdoctors, nurses and social work- ers. Dr . V as q uez concurs with this charge and adds that nurses are a I so unhappy because they have been. reassigned on a random basis. Be cause of the impending changes t h e doctors and nurses say they will a ssume no responsibil ity for the saf- ety of the patients during the May I reorganizat ion. The staff however, claim they have been threatenedby administration that they will be held responsible indeed, and say the threat which came direct- ly from the hospital administrator was made in writing and has been documen- ted. Dr. Vasquez ci ted mixing of short and long term patients of all ages and s h ifting patients into different wards andpredictedalso that the reaction of patients to the moves could be totally u npredic table. He further specul ated probl ems for up to six months after the r e organization trying to get the pat- ients settled down again. Me di cal Director at the hospital, Dr. John Deadman countered the char- gesof little consultation with the pro- f e s s i o n a i staff by saying, "We did consul t the staff as much as we coul d. " H e went on to add, "Many of the pro- f essional staff have voiced disagree- m ent with the changes, but any large scal e change is bound to generate those feelings. " Whileagreeing that he felt many of the proposed changes were desirable Dr. V asquez said, "We do object to t h e arbitrary way these changes are being made. "He felt the changes should be delayed until further stud- ies can be made and he suggested that On tario Health Minister Dr. Richard Potter appoint a committee to investi- gate the reorganization. NEWMAN SHOULO resign frotm the downtown action committee says an editorial on page 2. REýM iNmclboni)lct. F F AMILY STAàAýNT Whitby Mall

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy