HEALTH-CARE WORKERS DESERVE MORE RESPECT

Perhaps we shouldn’t criticize health-care workers over parking in a worker shortage?

After reading the article (QEH parking lot lottery, March 26) of Mr. Roumbanis lamenting the staff using the public parking lot, I couldn’t help but shake my head in disappointment at the lack of any real issue to be brought forward.

While I, too, had been mildly frustrated in the past at the parking situation at the QEH while I lived on P.E.I., I never once felt that it was the staff causing this issue, as the staff parking lot looked full, from my perspective each time I went. But this had me think back to a much, much bigger, pressing issue for the province right now: We’re in a critical shortage of health-care professionals right now. The health-care graduates are leaving for greener shores and the doctors we already have are overworked and retiring at a pace faster than we can recruit them. And how do Islanders react to this? Looks like we complain about them using a parking space to go to work.

But it’s not just that: Islanders criticize the punctuality of services at their doctors’ offices, we yell and threaten the nurses in emergency care, and we harass the staff at facilities that close select weekdays because they don’t have the staff readily available. Overall, Islanders treat health-care professionals with a level of disrespect I don’t even see in teenagers. We seem to treat our health-care workers in an appalling manner, and then we’re shocked and angry when we see our health-care services crumbling.

So, Mr. Roumbanis, with respect, save your criticisms towards something constructive; don’t direct it towards our health-care workers and where they park their vehicles.

Samuel Midkiff,

Schefferville, Que.