Stories about unreasonable wait times for cancer treatment in British Columbia seem to be piling up, and now one of them is really hitting home. My mom has been added to the wait list.

After a scan on March 7, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the surgeon referred her to the B.C. Cancer Agency for treatment. They have told her she will be prioritized based on the referral date and urgency of the case.

I am afraid it will become urgent and untreatable while she waits. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, the earlier pancreatic cancer is diagnosed and treated, the better the outcome.

I recently saw a post on a neighbourhood Facebook page. The woman wrote about her 23-year-old brother-in-law who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on March 23. It had been seven weeks and he still had not been contacted by the cancer agency.

On May 23, I saw the letter about a 70-year-old Comox man with liver cancer on the cusp of being treatable, also waiting, more than 10 weeks to start some kind of treatment that could save his life.

So, my mom is left trying to rattle the chains, hoping someone hears her. I can’t imagine how frightening it must be.

The last time she called the cancer agency she was told she would be seen by someone, but that it “wouldn’t be in June.” She was told she could talk to a counsellor for help if she was experiencing problems with her mental health as a result of the wait.

This is heartbreaking. Her GP, thank goodness she has one, has told her part of the problem is the oncologists specialize in certain cancers, so she has to wait until the one who specializes in pancreatic cancer has an availability.

I have been told once a patient enters the cancer agency for treatment the care is exceptional and the people there are very caring. But that is little consolation for those waiting, desperate, for the call.

I don’t know what has to be done to fix the system, but someone has to hear the calls for help. If it is a specialist shortage, I certainly hope British Columbia isn’t still banking on the nice weather and great scenery to lure them here, because that isn’t working anymore.

Five years ago and due to an 18-month surgical wait time, I travelled to Phoenix, Arizona, for a hip replacement. Three years ago and under similar circumstances I travelled to Mexico for a knee replacement.

Today and with the retirement of my family physician, I have spent six weeks unsuccessfully trying to secure a doctor to renew my asthma medication.

I expect that I will die on the streets of one of the most prosperous nations in the world.

On Tuesday, May 24 after 2 p.m. I was not feeling very well. I was able to park my car and my husband Ray helped me into the washroom in Mount Douglas Park.

I was very ill and became weak and felt as though I would collapse. I heard someone in the washroom who asked if they could help.

A younger lady with black hair came and helped me get up, phoned the ambulance and took me outside. She made sure I was OK and then helped my husband into our car. She drove him home!

Then after parking our car, she had to phone her son to come and get her.

I am sorry that we did not get the lady’s name. She was an angel who was there to assist us both and we want to acknowledge her kindness.

We also would like to thank her son for his part in helping us. Hoping they will see this message and know that their act of kindness was appreciated.

On our almost daily walks to Fisherman’s Wharf, my husband and I usually sit on a bench and watch the world go by for a while.

Last weekend when we arrived home I couldn’t find the keys to our condo, I left my husband outside the condo and hurried back retracing our steps in search of the keys until I got back to the bench we had been sitting on.

Some kind person had not only retrieved the keys, but taken the trouble to attach them to an elastic band and secure them to the back of the bench. I was overwhelmed with relief and would like to thank the good Samaritan for their kind actions.

Yes, the noise of gas-powered landscaping equipment is a huge issue, but the most important reason to ban them is because of their carbon footprint.

Small, two-stroke gas engines spew carbon at a rate of 10 to 15 times that of a new car. One estimate is an hour of fossil-fuel blower use is like driving a new car for 15 hours or more. (Same with gas-powered lawnmowers, etc.)

Adding to the greenhouse effect and noise levels dangerous to hearing are not the only issues. The smell of spent fuel hangs over a neighbourhood, especially in the thick air in autumn, and can be debilitating to those with breathing issues such as asthma.

Their powerful blasts circulate allergens, toxins, pollutants like herbicides and pesticides, and pathogens into the atmosphere, along with dust. The force of these blasts along with their high temperatures kill insects and micro organisms.

Bottom line: Use a rake. Get some exercise. Better still, let the leaves lay where they fall … like Mother Nature intended. They are food for the trees!

Media negligence has got the public believing electric-powered yard equipment and cars etc. don’t use petroleum. The Times Colonist, amongst other media, must teach the electrifying truth.

Here is what I know. Site C dam uses millions upon millions upon millions of tons/litres of diesel, kerosene, and coal, and gasoline for day-to-day construction, producing cement for millions of metres of concrete, flying thousands of workers in and out for years, tons upon tons of rebar, a cavalry of trucks servicing the power transmission system, production facilities around the world that built parts for the dam such as the turbines and to transport the equipment to Fort St. John.

Electrification might be the best thing since sliced bread, but it is so far from being petroleum-free as to make that thought laughable.

The City of Victoria has a grand opportunity to commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the 70 years of reign, by renaming the Triangle Green to the Platinum Jubilee Garden.

There are seven trees planted on the eastern edge of the triangle, on the eastern side of the new bridge. The trees symbolize the seven decades of Her Majesty’s reign as Queen of Canada and head of the Commonwealth.

To whatever nation one belongs, the Queen is held in high esteem, and her royal longevity deserves some visible and permanent recognition in the city where the monarchy has significant history and heritage.

May the council of the day see gratitude and wisdom in the act of renaming.

David A. Spence President, Royal Commonnwealth Society Vancouver Island Brentwood Bay

I suggest a somewhat radical approach to the redrawing of federal electoral boundaries, as I firmly believe that there are too many Members of Parliament, and the last thing Canadians want is more.

With 38 million Canadians and 338 MPs, there is one MP for about 112,500 citizens. That number is far too low. It may have been appropriate many years ago, but today each MP should represent 200,000 people.

That would put 190 MPs in Ottawa as opposed to the 338 we now have. It would avoid the expense of adding seating to the House of Commons every decade or so.

I know MPs argue that they want to be able to “reach out” to their constituents, but with online forums, email, the media, etc. that is easily done.

A good example where reductions are needed is Vancouver Island. The population is 865,000. There are eight MPs. We need four: Two for the south Island, one for central, and one for the north Island.

Given the cost of keeping MPs in Ottawa, the savings, if this reduction were put in place, would be immense.

One final note, as the population grows, the number of MPs should not increase. There should be a cap of 200 MPs for the rest of time.

While there may be good reason for the necessity to rebuild the Royal B.C. Museum, the approach put forth by our government lacks any measure of good business or curatorial sense. This situation may contain a golden opportunity to achieve multiple goals in our city’s cultural and business development.

In a business case for the museum proper, as a director I could never imagine the total shutdown of this wonderful attraction and the multiple dissemination and handling of its many precious artifacts. I would search for a new locale for the museum and I am sure that appropriate sites exist.

At the other end of what we know as “downtown” is the remediated land from the old gasification plant, which has recently been sold to the Esquimalt Nation. Adjacent to this is the large tract formerly owned by the Green and the Capital Iron family, and I think now sold for eventual redevelopment. Placing the museum here would bookend our downtown business and tourist district, filling it out most appropriately.

By constructing on a new purpose-built site, the museum could operate fully until the artifacts can be moved once and safely to the new digs. The other big plus to this approach would then be the choice for the redevelopment of the current museum site.

I would suggest that a world-class concert hall would make Victoria into a truly world-class city with legislature and concert hall at one end, and at the other end the new and wonderful Royal B.C. Museum.

If the Capital Iron area does not work, there are the properties in Vic West, in the block between Bay, Tyee and Alston, which comprise 3.7 acres and are owned now by the Anthem group and Jim Pattison Group and have terminal leases over the next few years. Also, I am sure that there are other assemblages that any savvy-minded developer could come up with for the museum placement.

The museum will draw its patronage to wherever it finds a home within reasonable access to downtown. The huge benefit of a “one move” for the artifacts has to be a very large concern and one not even mentioned by the current quickly flung-out plan.

As a supporter of Premier John Horgan, but not all of his party politics and decisions, I believe he was horrendously misled or outright lied to by his bureaucrats and the ministers he has unfortunately surrounded himself with.

I agree that having a nice new seismically improved building with the new-car smell would be lovely, if we could promise our elderly (me) and our sick (me) that we would get the medical care that we need and deserve so that we might live long enough to see what the taxpayers (us) money has bought.

I am very fortunate to have the care that I am getting from my various types of cancer specialists and family doctor. That is why I know what an ordeal some people are going through just to get appointments.

What a world we live in when we consider it lucky to be a patient of an oncologist and have a family doctor.

Politicians are elected by the people to be guardians and keepers of the finances gathered from the people and to spend it in the best interest of the people, and not to be squandered on niceties because maybe the minister of whatever begs for the money to make them look good to their constituents or to appease minority groups.

The shambolic mess our health service is in is not entirely the fault of our present government, but the fact that they are not making an effort to fix it is.

Blame lies squarely with Horgan. I will vote only when I know that the intention of the incumbents is to assure that they will make it their first priority to restore or improve our health care to at least its former excellence.

Last but not least, notwithstanding that Victoria is the capital, why should all of the taxpayers of B.C. be made to pay for our tourist mausoleum when they don’t even have primary health care where they and their families live?

Re: “Hard sell: How NDP team dug itself into deep hole,” May 26.

Thank goodness we have Les Leyne to cut through all the what’s-good-for-the-roses the NDP are spreading around, and really explain to us how we arrived at where we are today, vis-à-vis the museum debacle.

The tourism minister’s release of the much-redacted business plan for their billion-dollar Royal B.C. Museum teardown and reconstruction did little to ease one’s mind.

The government has deemed it less expensive to build a new museum rather than to repair the current one. With no design in place for the new building, how is it possible to know the budget for reconstruction? Does this budget also allow for inflation and the cost to the local tourism economy?

Oh well, in 10 years or so upon reopening, alongside the woolly mammoth we can look forward to displays of more recent extinctions under the current government including sincerity, honesty, transparency and family doctors.

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