They are cancelling elective surgeries in Ottawa this week, as two big hospitals have a lot more patients than beds. Health care officials, as usual, talk of "perfect storms" and point the finger at various non-political causes (gastrointestinal outbreaks in nursing homes gets special mention in this case). But the obvious factor that the media almost always misses is that the goverment forces all hospitals to have dangerously high occupancy levels. dallan@cupe.ca
Notes from Leftwords -- Doug Allan