Saluting a long time physician for excellent care over the decades

Editor:

It’s the end of an era for Swift Current and for us. About 44 years ago we chose Dr. Rizqi Ibrahim as our family doctor. Over those four and a half decades, he saw us through some incredible experiences and helped us weather some dark storms, particularly during the deaths of each of our family members.

I experienced depression in the 80s, a time when there was a much bigger stigma around mental illness. It wasn’t talked about and I felt I had to “hide” it. I was so reluctant to see a counsellor, but Dr. Ibrahim persuaded me to seek help. In fact he made arrangements for the psychiatrist at the time to see me on Saturdays.

He cared for me when we miscarried a baby early into our marriage and again through our pregnancy and delivery of our son. He was one of the doctors who persisted in the care of our daughter when she was diagnosed with allergies.

In more recent years he cared for my mother-in-law when she was extremely ill and passed away. He took my father-in-law as a patient, at a time when he already had an overflowing case load. It made it so much easier for us to take care of Dad’s needs with one doctor for all of us. Dad loved Dr. Ibrahim, and Dad was not easily impressed! I remember once when I had Dad to see him, Dr. Ibrahim asked him “How have you been?” Dad, with his extremely poor hearing said, “No, I don’t eat much beef!” They both laughed about that!

He cared for both my husband and I for everything from ingrown toenails to biopsies on my thyroid. There were times I would get frustrated, but that can be true with any professional or indeed any relationship but we always, always trusted his professional judgement.

In the past number of years in particular we have seen several of the physicians and residents at his clinic and have received excellent care, but today it feels a bit like a ship without a captain.

We want to wish Dr. Ibrahim the very best as he embarks on this new chapter in life and thank him for the excellent care he provided us and our family and for going the extra mile on more than one occasion. It’s a credit to him for the influence and hard work he put into bringing residents and interns to our city and his many years as physician for the Swift Current Broncos. It’s a very well deserved retirement. We’re going to miss him.

Myles and Cindy Penner - Swift Current Editor:

An Open Letter to the Swift Current Yellow Vests:

First of all, I compliment you for your willingness to believe things strongly and to take a stand for those beliefs. Thank you for being concerned enough about our country to do what you believe you can do to make changes.

From my observations of your signs and a brief conversation I have had, I understand there are four issues in particular that matter to you and should matter to all of us: the performance of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, UN interference in our country, migration, and the carbon tax. Here is my brief take on these:

1. Can we simply agree, all partisan politics aside, that at this point all three of our main federal political leaders have done too little to build a lot of confidence in their ability to lead our country? Trudeau has made the mistakes of any rookie PM who did not gain any experience by serving in cabinet before he became PM. Scheer and Singh are equally inexperienced and show too little promise.

2. The UN cannot impose anything on any country. It is an organization where countries join to discuss important matters and then agree whether or not to participate. Suggesting that the UN will somehow impose immigration and refugee policies on Canada is simply uninformed fear-mongering. Warning us of such imposition lessens your credibility.

3. Migration. If a truck load of armed men pulled up to your demonstration, raped all the women, and shot any male who dared intervene, would you want to wait till some bureaucrat makes up his/her mind before you sought refuge in a safe country? If every night your children cried as you put them to bed because they did not have enough to eat, would you do anything you could to get to a country where you could feed them? Countries that are close to war zones have no choice. Refugees simply stream in. We see this in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Why wouldn’t we try to be a kind and compassionate country, helping as many as possible—and with our resources, wealth, and space we could help many more than we are. Let’s focus our energies on how we can help, not on how we might stop a few people who don’t follow all the rules.

4. Carbon tax. Okay, I agree, I am not much fond of taxes either. I am NOT against the use of oil and oil products. I drive a car, go places on planes, and use plastics. I think Trans Mountain should be built sooner rather than later. However, I think consumers of oil should pay the FULL cost of such consumption and that includes paying for carbon emissions. When companies pay royalties on oil and potash, we don’t call it a tax. No more is the carbon tax really a tax. It is a fee that should be paid for the use of the atmosphere as a place to dump emissions. That money should be used to develop cleaner sources of energy. Why should I with my car or industry with their large polluters get off free? I think farmers should get credit for all the carbon emissions they use in growing crops. Seems to me in a good, free-market, capitalist economy, you pay for costs, you get paid for product and service.

Bottom line: We need to work together as a country and a global community. And just because the US, India and China are bigger polluters, does not mean we should not do our part.

Suggestion: Let’s have a public conversation about this. Appoint two of your people. Let’s have them meet with myself and a friend in a public space where others can listen and ask questions, and let’s talk about this in an attempt to understand each other and learn from each other. Send your contact info to the Editor at the Booster and I will get in touch with you.

Ray Friesen - Swift Current