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p 4 weekender april 22 1995 stux good affordable health care depends on us we may be turning into a nation of pillpoppers and it might be killing us both finan cially and literally senior citizens it is sad to say are among the most vulnerable people in our society many are trusting souls and have grown up in an era when do as you are told was the rule of the day when it comes to medical care seniors often do as they are told and in many cases they are being told to take an increasing succession of pills and medicines for what ails them some overworked physicians or physicians intent on racking up high fees are quick to pre scribe a pill for a senior rather than go through a timeconsum ing battery of tests or spend time listening in order to better under stand the seniors needs the viewpoint andrew mair physician is often quick to assume the aches and pains of many seniors are simply the bi- products of getting old and not pathological at all a survey released this week indicated that the doctors mak ing the most money in one east coast province were also the same doctors who prescribed the most pills and saw the most elderly patients in other words the office was like a revolving door to a pill factory in many cases the seniors were not get ting the care they should have been receiving and in others there is good evidence to suggest the treatment received was killing not healing them we all have a responsibility to maintain a good level of health care both doctor and patient have to take the time to ensure the medical treatment we receive is both appropriate and necessary this week we were told of a woman who spent three weeks in a hospital with migraines which prevented her from keeping food down she was given pill after pill only after she asked for one was she granted a brain scan she was found to have an aneurism in the brain stem this makes the point that all open wide bend over adam by brian basset if 6vansto0crmtattcnil virm mi autcstubi nesme cahg3we ihto the resiavsjakt noofflaupse not vim because xtumk he vntewthhlsbewh patients receiving care must remember ask questions in the hustle and bustle of everyday health care patients can easily get lost especially senior citizens who are all too often trusting of a person in authority such as a doctor patients of any age should always ask questions of any pro cedure or medication demand the best care and insist on an expla nation of the diagnosis and treat ment schedule research your diagnosis and treatment and if you are not sat isfied if you think you are being pushed a pill as a quick remedy get a second opinion and dont exclude non medical approaches we can have an affordable excellent health care system we all just have to work together to get it the tribune weekender edition a metrclaod community newspaper patricia pappas pubusiier jo ann stevenson editortncbiet andrew mair editor debraweller director of advertising barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager news administration 2942200 retail tales 7987624 classifieds 2944331 distribution 2948244 fax 2941538 9 heritage rd markham ont l3p im2 the stouflville and uxbridge tribunes pub lished every wednesday and saturday u one of the metroland printing publishing and distrib uting group of suburban newspapers which includes markham economist and sun ajax pickering news advertiser auroranewmarket era banner barrio advance brampton guardian burlington post cityparent colling- wood connection etobicoke guardian george town independentacton free press kingston this week lindsay thia week milton canadi an champion mississauga news northumber land news north york mirror oakville beaver oriltia today oshawawhitbyciarington this week peterborough this week richmond llillthornhillvaughan liberal scarborough mirror todays seniors contents not to be reproduced without written permission from the publisher permit 1247 invited to a wardvntpay the army spent 2 billion for fly swatters to send to alaska when the fly swatters got up there they found there wasnt no flies in alaska so the army spent 4 billion more to raise flies to ship to alaska sos they could use them fly swatters thats how the army works son senator claghorn and thats a joke son but only just you may recall that a couple of years ago reporters discovered the pentagon had paid a vendor 600 apiece for airline toilet seat covers street price 25 the jarhead geniuses had also laid out 7662 for a coffee maker 400 for a hammer and 65953 for an ashtray not that the military mind oper ates any more brilliantly north of the border back in 1987 then- canadian defence minister jean- jacques blais announced that the canadian armed forces would be issued with m16 rifles at a cost of 1314 each now at the time an average street psychopath could walk into any guns tx us store in the us and pick up the same heater for less than 700 reason for the uh discrepancy royalties said the defence minis ter how about bonehead stupidity mister blais but then that too is a canadian military tradition it was just one year later that perrin beatty in his incarnation as canadian defence minister was pushing a plan to spend 8 billion on a fleet of nuclear submarines to keep canadas arctic free from the commie menace for tunately the evil empire vaporized itself before ottawa had to figure out a way to winkle an extra 8 bil lion out of the back pockets of cana dian taxpayers makes you wonder though if our military leaders cant mobilize the brainpower required to run a corner candy store how are they going to win a war maybe its the old too many chiefs not enough indians syn drome last winter the news leaked out that 19 canadian generals flew to florida for business and social izing with american brass nineteen generals for a country with an army smaller than portu gals was there anybody left hold ing the fort back home oh yes canada could well afford to dispatch a dozen and a half brass hats to frolic in the florida surf after all there were still more than 50 of them tripping over their swag ger sticks here at home read it and weep canucks the canadian armed forces stagger along under the weight of 93 generals and admi rals not to mention 295 colonels and navy captains this is a country in which the total airforce consists of just 300 planes where the navy runs fewer sub marines than the west edmonton mall a little topheavy officerwise eh wot our current defence minister david collenette has promised to trim the ranks he says that over the next three years the number of generals and admirals will be reduced from 93 to 70 fifty colonels and navy captains will be de mobbed reducing the total from 295 to 245 which is a startbut when you hear that bell canada plans to axe 10000 jobs and the canadian broadcasting corporation intends to deepsix more than 30 per cent of its employeesits tough to shed a tear for the generals and the admi rals somebody once described the pen tagon as a log drifting down the river with 25000 ants on it each one convinced he was in charge sounds like a fair description of the canadian armed forces with figures suitably adjusted for defla tion of course the poet carl sandburg once wrote sometime theyll give a war and nobody will come maybe we can shortcircuit that maybe the next time somebody gives a war we can simply refuse to pay