Province’s budget cuts are hurting seniors

Mr. Premier, the promised cuts to some programs, the re-aligning of monetary support to doubtful venues and fully expecting inconveniences due to those actions was something I, as a senior in a small rural town, wholeheartedly supported, providing discretion, consideration and common sense were the basis for their decisions.

Unfortunately, it seems they wanted to use up their allotted supply of “red pens” when a seemingly suitable and agreeable plateau was reached; they started to further slash indiscriminately at those of us who are most vulnerable and who will suffer more than the average person from what they deem as “A Slight Inconvenience.”

We, the seniors, and those who mentally and physically cannot exist on their own, are now being subjected to the return to the destructive and inconsiderate “Klein era” of cut, slash and ignoring the pleas to not interfere with physicians, mental and social workers and pharmaceutical needs of dependent persons in this province and are again being used as pawns in the name of budgetary stability.

Doctors’ fair pay structures are fundamental in small rural hospitals to retain their services. Our pharmacists are forced to give cheaper medications that may not be as effective in many patients and overworked social workers who are our lifelines are interfered with to the extreme that services become selective or partially withdrawn is reprehensible. We, the unseen and always ignored political pawns, suffer greatly as the result.

Lawrence Johnson

Vulcan