Some More Interesting New Stories

Of course my new stories are always interesting! Why else would you be reading them.

I do try very hard to find stories to write about and to give you my comments about them. Naturally, I hope that you agree with what I am saying but I don't expect it to happen every single time. Who knows, we might have some differences. However, you will at least know why I am saying what I do.

A Monday night a while ago was interesting for our family. We were having our usual "early dinner" at around 4:50 PM. While it may seem "early," my wife and I are up at around 5:30 AM each morning so by that time we are a little bit hungry. Fortunately we were able to eat most of our dinner and then all of a sudden the power in the house went off.

I have to admit that at first I was not all that concerned about it. Based on outages that I had before, I expected it to last for only a few seconds and then come right back on. That is what happened in the past and then work was done later to solve those problems. This time around however the outage lasted for almost 3 1/2 hours! I knew that it was something completely different but did not know what it was at first. Importantly, I could not eat the rest of my meal at that time because we did not have any more power sources.

I'm not going to go into a long discussion about it. I did walk initially to the area where the outage took place and there was a fire crew there already to make sure there was no big disaster taking place. There was no fire as far as I could tell but I understand that there was some kind of an electrical issue that may have resulted in the outage. Subsequently, I understood that a crew from the local Hydro company came and fixed the problem by about 8:20 PM when the power in my house was turned back on.

I do not believe that a massive amount of work had to be done to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the crew necessary to fix it was in another location just finishing up a problem located there as our situation arose. Given where it happened, I assume that the drive back would take about an hour as well. I think that is why our outage took so long before the power was put back on.

In any event, the issue was resolved by our Hydro company, Essex Power, in a very favorable way and as quickly as they could do it.

Thank you for your efforts!

Now let me discuss some other issues with you, dear reader.

WILL WE EVER GET A NEW TUNNEL

It appears as if there are some problems there these days that is delaying construction:

“The Detroit-Windsor tunnel’s CEO Neal Belitsky indicated Monday it is now anticipated construction inside the 88-year-old border crossing — which has forced nightly closures since late last year — will not be completed for at least another couple of months…

The Detroit-Windsor tunnel’s CEO Neal Belitsky indicated Monday it is now anticipated construction inside the 88-year-old border crossing — which has forced nightly closures since late last year — will not be completed for at least another couple of months.” (Dave Batagello, Windsor Star, October 30, 2018) 

From the Star story, for whatever reason, no one was given an explanation why this was happening. Why not? That seems strange to me.

What also seems strange to me is how much Canadian officials are prepared to do to get this project finished already:

“She said tunnel officials in Windsor have offered assistance to compete the project, but received little response.

“We’ve offered additional (full) closures, we’ve asked ‘do you need more bodies?’” Brown said. “We asked ‘Is there anything we can do to help get the project finished?”

Presumably, this would have cost someone extra money to retain additional employees to get his work done more quickly or to do whatever else has to be done. Was the Canadian half of the tunnel prepared to pay the additional money to do this or did they expect the American half to pay these additional costs?

Hmmm. I wonder if we could expect something similar to take place if a Government bridge was going to be built. If so, would more money than the $5 billion plus Government cost for the bridge have to go much higher as well? With all of it being paid by the Government Canada!

DO WE NEED ANOTHER HOSPITAL

I'm sure that you remember that our new hospital that is going to be built is supposed to replace the other two hospitals that are around now. There's also some talk about increasing the number of beds in that hospital because I believe there is a feeling that more are needed. If those beds are added in, I'm not certain that the Provincial Government will pay for it or the cities and towns in this area may have to do so because they may want the additional size.

To be direct about it, I would also think that if more beds are wanted, then presumably they ought to be added in to the number of rooms that are being built originally. However, I think I saw it written somewhere previously that they would only be added in after the initial size of the new hospital is built.

Honestly, isn't it time to kill the whole project? After all, the Provincial election is over and there are no Liberal promises needing to be fulfilled any more.

How can we have a small, new hospital replacing two existing hospitals? Where will all of these extra sick people be placed if they need a hospital bed? Considering that our population age is increasing, I would expect that more members of our area will need hospital beds in the future to treat all of them with serious illnesses. A new hospital which only can hold what our hospitals are holding today makes no sense to me.

Moreover, look at the problem that our existing hospitals are having right now with all of the sick people that they are treating now:

“The ERs are becoming overloaded and are unable to off-load the ambulances,” Ng said. “So often ambulances get stuck waiting outside emergency room departments not able to off-load patients, which leads to fewer ambulances in the community. There are times where there is significant delay to get an ambulance, and we see this as a crisis.”

Ng added the ambulances can’t offload a patient without an available bed…

Ng added the population is aging, and their health problems are becoming more complex. He said those factors combined with fewer beds and less staff is causing many ERs, and hospitals in general, to become overcrowded.” (Greg Higgins, Blackburnnews.com, Oct 25, 2018) 

I do not understand how it can get any better in the future when the population could rise dramatically and there are more older people living in the area. No hospital the size of our two hospitals now can handle the increased population properly from a medical perspective as far as I'm concerned.  How can only one hospital do it then?

If that is true, then what game is being played now and why?