Canada’s biggest ‘public health crisis’
p2pnet news view | Politics:- What’s Canada’s biggest “public health crisis”?
That ordinary people frequently have to wait for many months for treatment?
The continuing lack of family doctors?
The exorbitant cost of medications?
None of the above, says Bill Wilkerson (right), founder of Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health.
“The public service is a tsunami of distractions — meetings, everything questioned, delegated, people moving … and no one is really in charge,” it has Wilkerson stating.
“It’s the most transient, fluid, unsettling work environment on the planet, so why wouldn’t people be anxious and in distress? They are human beings.”
With prime minister George W. Harper running things, this comes as no surprise.
No need to stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
January, 2010
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January 11th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I have no idea what you are talking about. Please give a little substance so that what your saying can built on a solid argument. Public health is important and I want to contribute to the dialogue.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
@Remby:
Did you follow the link to the National Post article?
January 11th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
It’s as much Harper’s fault as it is a product of socialized medicine.
January 11th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Good. The public “servants” are a parasite on our economy. I doubt you’ll find much sympathy for anyone in the public sector. Their unions wield a HUGE amount of political power in Ontario, constantly pushing for higher taxes and ever more spending of public tax dollars to serve their greedy interests.
I’m getting sick of 60 cents of every dollar I earn begin STOLEN to fund these useless bubble-butt bureaucrat control-freaks. I am starting to think the people who just sit on their ass and collect UI/disability/welfare have the right idea. Why work when more than half of the fruits of your labour are stolen and handed to someone else who contributes nothing? I’m on the wrong side of that equation.
Just remember folks, for every dollar the gov’t spends, they only get 30 cents worth of productivity, and the rest is funnelled to cronies, party hardliners, union parasites, and other crooks with their fingers in the pie. The E-Health Ontario scam is just one of MANY examples of outright theft and fraud of your hard-earned tax dollars.
BTW most of these people in public sector jobs are outright losers that couldn’t hack it in the private sector to save their life. You think a public-sector job, which is well protected by strong unions, is stressful? Get real and try working for a private corporation where you’re out the fucking door in a millisecond if you screw up or get upstaged. Because profitability is actually important to private companies, they can’t afford to have so many useless eaters on payroll unlike the public sector. In the public sector it is COMMON for workers to take upwards of 30 sick-days per year with no consequences (it’s not like they work when they show up anyways) yet in the private sector if you take more than about 2 or 3, you’re half-way out the door.
So, in summary, if you work in the public sector and want to bawwww about how hard it is, you can go pound sand, because nobody cares about the whining of useless unproductive parasites.
January 11th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Here’s a cheap treatment option for public service ‘depression’:
Make them work a week in the private sector.
I bet that will cure things quickly.
January 11th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
@ RW “Make them work a week in the private sector.”
No good. Then the suicide rate would sky-rocket. And it’d give Wilkerson another way to tout his service.
Cheers!
January 13th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Depression comes from many stress factors. Wages that have not kept up with inflation for over a decade. I work for the public service and my pay check for 2007 December was the same as my 2009 December pay. How many in the private sector went through years of no pay raises. I know many that have left the public service due to wages because they make more in the private sector. In many cases, they come back and do the same job they left with a higher wage than they made before. One person is even at his old desk.
Work related stress to do more with less, just like in the private sector. The only problem is to get something, you have to go through three people, jump through two meetings and then make sure it is under $5,000. If it is over $5000, then it starts again. Paper work and more paper work. In some cases, you have to do two sets of paperwork for the same job.
Unpaid work is common. I have days of unpaid work accumulated because we are not allowed to work overtime but the work needs to be done.
Sick time? Take to many days off and you have to start getting everything approved. Get notes from doctors or worse.
The only benefit is the pension system. I would recommend that any young person that wants to work for the public service to avoid it with a passion. Work in the private industry for a decade and get your self settled. If the public service, you are going to lose out to inflation because it is easy for the government to come after us first for cut backs. The Liberals and Conservatives have both done it so it isn’t based on party lines.
Depression comes from reading how managers and those in the private sector are getting new vehicles, houses, TV and vacations while we struggle to pay our bills and make ends meet knowing that we are only getting a legislated 1.5% pay raise when the press if full of 3% to 10% raises in the private sector.
This isn’t the public sector from 20 years ago. This is a lot different than it was when I was a student doing a summer job.
We don’t have any social benefits anymore. No company BBQ’s. No Xmas parties. No taking a contractor or customer out for dinners and drinks. Heck, if we are given something from a supplier, we may have to turn it in. Even prizes awarded from trade magazines or trade shows have to be turned into work.
I can go on more. Moral has been going down since I started and the moral was down then.
I would leave if it wasn’t for the pension plan as I only have a few years to retire.
As for working conditions, I don’t even have as much space as a normal cubical to work in at my desk but I am expected to do the same as someone that has a full office and lab. And yes, we can be fired for not doing our job, I have seen it.
I could go on.