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economist sunsuntribune health saturday oct 112003 13 medical officer wants disease squad from page 1 implement his groups strate gy which he said is specifi cally designed to reduce the chances that the health of canadians will ever again be held hostage dr schabas and dr kassam urged politicians to move quickly on implement ing the groups recommen dations or risk losing momentum to overhaul the public health system public health is a victim of its own success said dr schabas ontarios former medical officer of health dr schabas blamed draconian over reaction by the provincial government for thousands of residents being quarantined unnecessarily people take it for granted its only when we have issues like sars and walkerton that people pay attention its a very narrow window of opportunity to implement the groups recommenda tions i think there is- a win dow of opportunity where we have the political official and media attention york region was a hot spot for the deadly conta gious respiratory disease there were 110- sars cases in the region including nine deaths seven of which were york residents the other two deaths were toronto residents who died in york in addition to closing york central for 20 days the dis ease resulted in thousands of york residents being quaran tined a markham high school being closed for 10 days and businesses being shut down while dr kassam sup ports the groups recommen dations he warned no strate gy can fully prevent the spread of infectious diseases i dont think we can say for certain 100percent cer tainty that the creation of a new structure will stop the outbreak of any disease but it wiu help to mitigate it dr kassam believes a national public health centre overseeing canadian stan dards with swat teams at the local level to respond to emergencies would go a long way to ensuring infectious disease outbreaks are- stopped before threatening larger areas now is the time to ensure the adequate steps are taken to make sure public health has the necessary tools to mitigate crises in the future u dr schabas wasnt sur prised dr naylors group found fundamental flaws with the way governments responded to the sars crisis although he was pleased spe cific blame wasnt assigned dr schabas blamed dra conian over reaction by the provincial government for reelect tessa bennireland public school trustee ward 7 8- milliken mills your community candidate iieldstone windows liiitz c i si exceptional windows and trim 416 8072651 905 6409287 highest quality wood or vinyl products bays bows cutrouts entrance doors custom mouldings brick to brick or retrofit installations specialty glaring i thousands of residents being quarantined unnecessarily and hundreds of patients being robbed of medical care when hospitals were forced to cancel procedures such as elective surgeries he doesnt believe there will be an outbreak of sars anywhere in the world in the future but if it does return he feels the disease would appear in china where it first took hold if it does happen in china its unlikely to spread back to richmond hill and york region reelect khalid usman ward 7 councillor 9054708111 wwwkhalidusmiancom ffeelect george mckelvey he r jc f jbb ward 4 councillor making markham a better place fiscal responsibility protection of the environment continuing a debt free town mm w i m 1 m 13 ii i hi