{"id":810,"date":"2007-03-23T06:20:07","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T14:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/?p=810"},"modified":"2007-03-23T06:20:07","modified_gmt":"2007-03-23T14:20:07","slug":"mamas-big-day-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/?p=810","title":{"rendered":"Mama’s Big Day Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think it was a year ago when I first heard our premier, Gordon Campbell,<\/a> announce to the province at large that it was time to Have a Conversation on Health. Ostensibly, he wishes to solicit the opinions of the people whose health is at stake so that he can better direct the crafting of a health care system which serves their needs.<\/p>\n

Ha! I’m practising my fancy conversation skills! Because tomorrow I get to participate in a Regional Public Forum and actually join<\/b> the Conversation on Health. I was randomly selected, says the letter. But this is blatantly untrue. Several months ago I saw one of the many, many commercials advertising – er, public service announcementing – the public forums so I went to the website<\/a> and put my name and address down. I didn’t know: maybe everyone in the province was clamouring for a chance to attend an Important Democratic Process and I would NEVER get in. Or maybe it was just me – on leave from work and really missing those all-day, free-muffins-and-coffee-plus-all-the-hotel-pens-you-can-steal government meetings. I am guessing the latter as I am not what you call a lucky winner type. I won $500 at pull-tabs in a bar once and have won nothing since. Some might point out that $500 is nothing like going to an all-day government meeting but as the person who is usually in charge of running these meetings there is a certain $500 value in the fact that I can attend this one, eat all the muffins I want because I don’t have to worry whether or not there will be enough and besides, I already paid for them with my tax dollars AND when they can’t figure out how to hook up the laptop to the projector, it’s not my problem! <\/p>\n

After I accepted the kind invitation by email I received a package of reading materials to review before the Conversation date. Included in the nice folder is a set of 11 “conversation starters” to read over. 11 topics have been identified as “important health topics” and 11 short papers have been prepared to provide background on these topics. I am going to share them with you in case you have any pressing opinions and then I can Bring More to the Table ™.<\/p>\n

Pressures on the health care system
\nHealth care delivery
\nThe Canada Health Act
\nPrimary Health Care
\nSeniors and Aging
\nChronic disease prevention and management
\nHealth human resources
\nEnd-of-life care
\nEmergency departments
\nMental health and addictions
\nProblematic substance use<\/p>\n

I am looking forward to my Big Day Out in sort of a sick, troubled way. I like the idea of having intelligent discussions around health care because I do have opinions about all of those topics. I like the idea of participating in democracy. I like the idea of being in a room full of strangers (oh please let them all be strangers) and pounding the tables with our fists. I really like the idea of muffins. But I have a suspicion that the discussions will veer towards the non-productive argument-type (unless there’s an excellent moderator in attendance). Further, I know that the democracy that this appears to be is really just an appeasement. Hmm? Hey, thanks for voting for me again! Oh yes, I was listening. You have some very real concerns. We’re just going to do it this way anyway.<\/i> And the room full of strangers thing is great for the first hour and then there are 7 more. Hours, that is. The introvert in me (how meta!) who has spent the last 9 months talking to an average of one (1) adult and one (1) infant per day shivers just a little at the thought.<\/p>\n

The only thing, in short, that pleases me unequivocably about tomorrow’s plans is the certainty of the muffins and coffee.<\/p>\n

And hopefully a bumper sticker or something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think it was a year ago when I first heard our premier, Gordon Campbell, announce to the province at large that it was time to Have a Conversation on Health. Ostensibly, he wishes to solicit the opinions of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outside","category-serious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}