MORE ON WATERLOO REGION AMBULANCE SCANDAL

Today's Waterloo Region Record has this story "Ambulance care report hits nerve". The Record also published the following Editorial "Emergency services in crisis". I still can't help but compare the unionized paramedics to our unionized teachers. The former are being fired (2), written up (8) and suspended (16). When was the last time you heard of a teacher being either suspended for misconduct or fired? Basically they are never suspended and only fired AFTER they've received a criminal conviction due to child sexual abuse. It seems pretty clear that CUPE who represent the paramedics have the right to grieve the discipline if they feel they have a case. Clearly there are clauses in the union contract with the Region which stipulate some reasonable expectations of performance and conduct. Just as clearly there are no such clauses in the teachers contracts with our school boards. This is not to the shame of the unions but to the shame of the employers (school boards).

Today's Record shows two examples of poor performance by paramedics. In the one case an elderly woman exhibiting signs of a stroke was taken to hospital where the paramedic indicated to a nurse that there was nothing wrong with the woman. Her symptoms worsened and her son got assistance from another nurse. She called a doctor and it turned out that the woman was in the midst of a massive brain hemorrhage (a stroke). I suspected that regional authorities who had claimed that there was no evidence of patients sufferring harm from paramedics failure, were essentially blowing smoke. Indeed it's long been obvious to me that a lack of evidence usually simply means that no one has looked very hard because they don't want to find any such evidence.