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By the time this appears in print. the March Break will be over. This annual affair. which used to be , known " the Easter Holidays..has grown into a gross exercise in lowering our national balance of trade with the us. L It involves hundreds of thousands of Canadians. American nurses are demanding improved working conditions and wages that they say should match their training. skills and responsibilities. The limits of medicine and related legal matters are expanding and nurses are discovering that they are now assuming the exclusive roles that were once sole domain of the physician. A recent survey of 12 American cities showed se- veral fundamental changes in the profession which will not only affect nursing roles. but patient care it- self. Among the changes are the following: The nurse‘s image as the physician's handmaiden is fast becoming a thing of the past. Many attribute the change to advances in medical technology. labor unions. college degrees and the feminist maretfteett. Their weti-reheirieVt sales pitches include dim of cheap accommodation. free airfare, advanced compu- terized medicine and in several cases. a high ratio ttt men to women. Wages are usually far down the list of attractions and quite often the graduates are blinded by the light of the more glossy aspects of the Ameri- can offers and tend to forget about pay when signing on the dotted line. But it appears that all is not healthy in the nursing profession down south. , In Riot. I think- more people should consider with- holding payment of bills if they're sure they are not getting the service they're paying lor. 7 - With the atrocious service" Gnfed out by many local companies, non-payment seems to me to be a good method of protest. Nursing recruiter: from the United States have been ramming: College. as qeetiastttttere0m- munity colleges!“ the past several years in an at. tempt to lure musing graduates south of the border. These people wereit suggesting that all a the bill be withheld. but rather Just enough to cover the lack of !reryict by striking (perators. A 7 7 At the time. I found the idea a very good one. though I haven't been able to find out what happened to the project since. I suspect Bell wouldn't take at all kind- ly to customers who paid only half of their monthly service charges. But [doubt Ma would go to the trow ble of prosecuting the rebels. For anyone who doesn't read ads - or doesn't read the Record (heaven forbid) - the gist of the idea was this. Since Bell operators were not offering full ser- vice to users, users shmthin't have to pay all of their monthly service charge. An advertisement that appeared in the Kitchener Re. . cord recently sparked my interest. The ad was placed by a group of area residents. and it concerned the much publicized Bell telephone strike. ro tell you. They'll switch it to some other depart- ment. and spend it on something equally as non- producing as snow removal: so much tor straighten- ing bent parking meters: an allotment to the fire de- partment for three new checkerboards: a little dis. pensation to the Parks Board to repair vandalism; a portion to the Board of Works to pave over some grass for new parking meters: egrpenses tor a councillor to go to a convention in Hawaii to study racism. You name it. but it won‘t be a refund to the taxpayer. My snow removal bill is about half what it was dur- ing a normal winter. And that makes me wonder. What are all those towns and cities and villages who put aside in their budgets so much for snow removal and disposal going to do with all the money they ha- ven't spent? Well, admit it, soul-puss. It's been a great winter. hasn't it? January, unbelievable. February cold but clear. About half the amount of snow of an average Canadian winter. Bill Sm ile y Stewart Sutherland But I‘ll be diddled if rm going to spend a thousand bucks. and another on my wife, to line up in confused air terminals with all the other peasants, fly down south at some ungodly hour. May in some hotel that has about as much style and class as a McDonald's hamburger joint. be ripped off for everything I eat andldrink. and come home broke and exhausted and pee mg. Not when I can do the same thing for about two dollars, four months later, and not be burned. {my trated, or even tired, by just driving out to the beach. opening the thermos. gently brown, swim in clean water, and come home relaxed. People who ttan't cope with March by staying in Canada for the March Break should be picked up at Maybe you think rm Just Jealous, when all the teachers. and half the students, tell me they're off to Jamaica. Hawaii, Florida, the Barbados, Texas, for their one-week break. I am. parents and children, students, school teachers. in a massive airlift to the south, where they spend several millions of our sick Canadian dollars getting a sun- Somebody should put a stop to it. It's a waste of energy, with all that oil and gas going up in smoke, It's a waste of money. And it's a waste of time. When nurses strike in the United States, and Canada as well, they talk about improved patient care, but the bottom line usually turns out to be ‘How much money are you going to pay me?' I know most people in the service industry would disagree with me. But it seems consumers are paying more and more for various services, and often getting less and less. There must be some way to change that trend. . T amines are seeking Wat: in salaries. working conditions and benefits as well as more con- trol in the treatment of patients. ' 0 More men are turning to nursing as a profession. andaome tttsrsirtmperhrisors believe that this could lead toincmaaed wagesand 'tmttrove.theitnageothe vocation. (Advances in medical technology have not only" helped to extend life. but also created a needfor nurses who specialize in long-term care, cardiac care and intensive care. l _ _ Nurses who were once thought of " the quiet ‘Florence Nightingale' types have' found itnecessary to become more vocal than they were a few years ago and their chief complaint is money. After all, it isn't the fault of users that the company couldn't find or repair the problem sooner. Why should TV viewers have to suffer through that week. and then have to pay for the service? According to a survey conducted by several national nurses' groups. the average salary for an American nurse is $1bti4,000, although many new graduates are earning as much as $16,000 in some of the larger cities. The same survey shows the median net income of physicians is four times that of nurses. Nurses are finding that their responsibilities are increasing day-by-day. but their income isn't keeping For example. I know the residents of one small town in this area had a great deal of trouble recently with cable reception on their televisions. The cable company in question claimed the problem was under investigation. but it went on for over a week. I suggested to relatives who live in the town that they'd be wise to take their monthly cable hill. divide it by four and subtract one week's service charge from their payment. rm not a film, critic - though considering their salaries I wouldn't mind being one - but I saw a film last week of such high quality, that I feel the need to say methilgalw it, _ . _ . - _ " - Nursing graduates that I have talked to over the Called the Elack Stallion. it is being hailed as.one of fo ward Elliott 1itt-htoCttymtiele.tW6teatw.Ntrl12.ttltM-Ng" It's only a tnienty-four hour ride on the Polar Express, and I love trains. I can sleep and read and contemplate the inanities of the human race far better than on one of those' great cattle cars they call jumbos. A A Instead ttf having to fight for a taxi, I'il be met at the station by a snowmobile. inexpertly driven by my daughter, ru whistle out to her house. teeth chatter- ing. not with cold, but fear, " we circumnavigate tractor trailers. trucks, and Indiana under the influen- ce. (Continued on page 23t A There's a four-hour stop in Cttehrane, and I doubt that I'll have to line up to see the sights there. lwon't have to stand in a sweaty line to catch the last four, five or six-hour train ride to Moosonee. And that's exactly what I contemplate, as I write. Instead of heading for the sunny south, and a sybaritic week pretending I'm rich and elegant and-swinging. I'm planning to head for the frosty north, and a frigid week pretending I'm poor. tough. and hardy. It takes a lot more guts than flying to Barbados. bolting rum punches. and getting stung on the foot by a sea urchin. I'tl be training to Moosonee, bolting rum punches. and getting squeezed all over by human urchins. My grandboys. the border. locked into boiLiars .and sent up to James Bay. If you haven't seen the film do. And if possible take the nearest kid along with “You. Judging the response of the young ones in the an ience when my wife and I saw the movie, yin won't regret it. the visual masterpieces of the year by many critics. And it is. Bat the Black Stallion is more than that. Too often I leave a movie theatre with the feeling that I've been subjected to something odd in the name of entertain- ment. But this film is strictly entertainment. That doesn't mean it's lightweight, like the recent glut of science- fiction movies (in the market. In fact. Black Stallion is a very serious movie with a moral. message. theme or whatever you want to call it. At the same time though. it provides enough gen- uine entertainment to please adults and children. I think. And visually, the film is excellent. It is proba- bly the most beautifully photographed movie I've seen. In fact, one section is around 45anintttes long without dialogue of any sort, but the photography is enough to keep the audience entranced. With the increased demand for nurses. they will once again have the choice of selecting the Canadian health care institution that offers them the most in- stead of jumping on a plane and working in foreign facilities just because it's the only job available. Once again the law of supply and demand has come full circle and we can train Canadian nurses to work in Canadian institutions instead of shipping them off to fill the need of foreign health care systems. Times seem to have changed again asjndieated by the recent nurses' job fair sponsored by Conestoga College. The Canadian market is slowly opening up again and only Canadian hospitals were invited to at- tend the fair. This year's graduating class will see approximately 200 new nurses looking for employment and some ad- ministrators at the fair said they could have hired 220 nurses on the spot. years didn't really want to go to the United States after graduation. but tttttnd that it was almost a neces- sity if they wanted to get into the pram. They headed south because Canadian nursing achools were turning out more graduates than there were jobs here. It seems the flowery sales pitch from American in: stitutions didn't influence ttieirMeeision at that time....th'ey just wanted a job in their chosen fieid/.arty job. anywhere; Many Eeist theirUyes and ears open and as soon as a nursing job became available buck home, they packed thgir bags and rusted back. _