Letters to The Province, Jan. 12, 2023: Thank you to amazing staff at Surrey Memorial Hospital

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After going to Surrey Memorial Hospital’s emergency ward on Friday and consequently staying until Sunday, I felt compelled to say how amazing the nurses and all other support staff are doing.

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I was placed in a hallway on a stretcher with a number of other patients. While far from ideal for the patients, I was beyond impressed with the resilience of the nurses, security and all other staff. Many of the staff working 16-hour shifts while I witnessed them being hit, peed on, verbally abused and more. They maintained their care, even for these patients, with kindness. They all deserve accolades and serious respect for their continued dedication under very dire working conditions. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all.

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Sarah Vant Geloof, Cloverdale

The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer

When even people with decent middle-class levels of income are having great difficulty dealing with the rising costs of food, medicine, and everyday products, imagine how much worse it is for minimum-wage earners, retirees on inadequate pensions, and the poor who have to depend on food banks and other charitable agencies in order to survive.

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One thing that always becomes evident in hard economic times such as these is that the gap between the haves and the have-nots widens even further than it already was, and that the wealthy will always find ways to accumulate even more from such crises. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and it will be ever thus.

Ray Arnold, Richmond

The misunderstood adult with ADHD

ADHD. You picture a little boy disrupting the class, not a young woman facing social consequences of executive dysfunction. It can be lateness, forgetfulness, and disorganization. This can appear to be laziness, or disrespect. We face conflict with teachers or bosses. We chronically hear things like, “You won’t be late if you leave earlier. It isn’t that hard.” In reality, it is that hard when you are facing ADHD time blindness. Instructors spread harmful verbatim, disguised as words of wisdom. For example, “If we let you get away with this here, we’re setting you up for failure in your workplace.”

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I disagree with this narrative. Schools should be the change, and be advocating for workplace accommodations. Dopamine dysregulation is a major factor in ADHD. We can’t control it. Instead of instructors expecting us to change for society, why aren’t they advocating for society to be more accommodating for us?

Carly Nielsen, Surrey

Letters to the editor should be sent to [email protected]. 

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