Author: Bambi

According to Naharnet (March 9, 2020), an “apparently delinquent” outpatient left the hospital where he was being tested for the coronavirus to head toward the airport and “escape” to Canada:

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/269939-coronavirus-suspect-returned-to-hospital-after-escaping-to-airport

As per one sarcastic comment by a reader: “Lol, the man is not escaping from Corona but rather from Lebanon”.

Who knows? Perhaps he is simply eager to return to his home county, Canada, and did not want to be stuck quarantined for 14 days. Regardless, his behaviour is far from being wise and responsible.

He was arrested by the police at the airport and transferred back to the hospital by the Lebanese Red Cross to await the results of his test (which was being processed). Pending those results, he will either be allowed to travel to Canada (if negative) or stay in Lebanon for the needed time (if positive).

Well done Lebanon. Bambi wishes this man safe travels back to Canada BUT only after receiving the green light from the health authorities in Beirut.

Based on the article below, the UN declines to call the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic:

https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/07/un-refuses-to-call-coronavirus-outbreak-a-pandemic-scientists-disagree

It is somehow ironic how the UN has been scaring the planet with the impact of “global warming of 1.5°C” over years now. However, when it comes to a fast-growing virus transmission in several continents over days, it refuses to call the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

Indeed, according to the UN website, “climate change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment”:

https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-change/

However, and ironically, according to the Word Health organization (WHO)’s website, a pandemic is the “worldwide spread of a new disease”:

https://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/pandemic/en/

Bambi suspects that the UN may be reluctant to call a spade a spade for some political reasons, rather than merely scientific and public health-related ones. A little bit like how the true phenomenon of global warming has been politicized, weaponized, and even at times radicalized.

One can wonder if the UN will end up calling the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic in the near future, depending on how matters may evolve (no one knows when and how a worldwide outbreak ends).

Regardless, one thing is sure: it is not because it won’t that people will stop fearing this new virus or that the latter will stop crossing borders.

Eurobonds are external (or international) bonds, which are issued in a currency that is different from that of the issuer (i.e. the country or market issuing them).

Not surprisingly, Lebanon will not be paying its maturing eurobonds (due on March 9, 2020). In other terms, the government of Lebanon has now suspended a $1.2 billion eurobond payment due on Monday.

What will happen next? Time will tell…

“Lebanon’s governmental anti-coronavirus panel ordered the closure of educational institutions until March 14 and the closure of sport clubs, nightclubs, cinemas and fairs” (Naharnet source).

“Only one out of 22 coronavirus cases is of an unknown source” (Naharnet source).

“A nurse at the Notre Dame des Secours hospital and a patient who was in the room with the patient who came from Egypt have tested positive for coronavirus” (Naharnet source).

This being said, Bambi has suspected, from the beginning of this public health crisis, that the Lebanese authorities would have not been fully transparent about the precise number of infected people. Why is she saying so? Because it is Lebanon, after all, and because it was not fast enough in halting entry for travellers from coronavirus hubs (i.e. especially Iran, likely for political/ideological reasons). Many citizens have travelled to Iran for religious tourism and kept doing so even during the early stages of the crisis, it seems; of course, this in addition to travels from/to other hubs (China, Italy, etc.).

Then, the Lebanese authorities woke up (it is never too late). They took serious measures, like the ones described above and decisions concerning travels (i.e., China, Iran, Italy, etc.). They only accepted the entrance of residents who were abroad (returning home). They invited them to self-isolate themselves. They proceeded to test them in case of flu-like symptoms or fever. Right now, Bambi is unsure if the travels bans are still in place and, if so, for how long.

Despite this, and all in all, Lebanon’s response to the coronavirus crisis seems to be efficient, at least thus far. For instance, they secured beds in isolated parts of several hospitals and coordinated the response. They regularly update the population with press releases, etc.

One must add that Lebanon is used to surviving from crisis to crisis throughout history. When needed, this country can be not only efficient (small yet highly efficient) but also inspiring. For instance, it has survived to 15 years of civil war. Its medical system remained up-to-date and functional. Same for its currency. It is only now that its economy has collapsed (or it is about to do so?). Yet, tiny Lebanon is still hanging on in the middle of its unprecedented economic crisis.

Anyhow, Bambi would like to conclude this post with three pictures.

The first shows two government employees cleaning a public space in Beirut to prevent the transmission of the virus.

The second picture shows a couple on their Vespa, wearing a mask because they think it would help them protect their lungs and bodies from the coronavirus. Mind you, from their young age, they seem not to be in a vulnerable or risky group. Plus, let’s not forget that the mask be not be that protective, even if psychologically it may make them feel better. Ironically though, they forgot about a much more imminent threat to their safety (than a tiny invisible virus): a potential brain concussion, or even death, can occur more easily when we do not wear a protective helmet in case of a road accident. This being said, Bambi wishes them a long good health and life!

To conclude this post, the last powerful picture shows anti-government protesters in front of Lebanon’s Health Ministry on February 26, 2020. These courageous women are holding a sign in Arabic that reads, “You are the coronavirus. You are the epidemic“. This refers to the corrupt political leaders (still in charge), responsible for the economic fiasco in Lebanon.

Congratulations to Mr. Amine Maalouf, Lebanese-French author, for having been awarded the “National Order of Merit” by Mr. Macron, President of the French Republic!

Eight years ago, Mr. Amine Maalouf was inducted into the elite “Académie Française” (or French Academy) as one of 40 still living members to represent the French language.

Three days ago, Mr. Maalouf received this most prestigious distinction, which recognizes an individual who represents the civic “spirit” of France, a bit like our own “Order of Canada”, but with an important emphasis on the French culture.

Mr. Maalouf was born in Lebanon (like Bambi ?) in 1949:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_Maalouf

An inspiring talent: What a brain and what a pen!

Below you can watch an interview conducted with him by a journalist from Euronews (translated into English).

Thank you Mr. Maalouf! Merci du fond du coeur (Shukran شكرا)!

Bambi just discovered the nice short video (further below), which was produced in 2015 by the Asian Heritage Society with special thanks to the Government of New Brunswick and Government of Canada.

On YouTube, we can read the following description of the video in question: ” Winner of “Best Low-Budget NB Documentary” at the 2015 Silver Wave Film Festival Made in partnership with the Asian Heritage Society of New Brunswick. This short documentary profiles some of the Lebanese people in New Brunswick, revealing their personal stories, family history, and culture. It highlights people from various generations and families, from some of the first Lebanese to immigrate to New Brunswick and start their own businesses, to the Lebanese youth who plan on keeping their culture alive and strong”.

Anyhow, she hopes you will enjoy watching. As far as she is concerned, she was happy and proud to see a friend from Moncton in the video [Hello Mike (Timani) :)]!

Bambi’s comment below is to this interesting article in the New Wark Times entitled “Sackville Town Council calls for heads to roll over plan to cut rural hospitals”. Thank you Mr. Wark for keeping us well informed!

Will firing the CEOs of our health authorities change anything to our healthcare sustainability/efficacy issue?

Likely not. So why are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater then? To score political points or because we are too angry at these two CEOs (hired before the current government came to power)?

It is understandable, and noble, to want to defend our hospital tooth and nail. Thank you to our MLA and everyone’s efforts in doing so! Bambi has always thought to herself: By moving to Sackville, she now understands, more than ever, all what she used to hear in the news when growing up in Beirut about citizens’ complaints in regions of how centralization in the capital does not serve them as optimally as possible.

With time, Lebanon got more populated and big healthcare centres, and other institutions (like universities, etc.) opened almost everywhere in the country.

Lebanon has economic sustainability issues. Did a sort of mismanagement of resources take place, in addition to corruption? Did the country live beyond its financial means whilst nor diversifying its economy enough?

Anyhow, from such questions about public funding in Lebanon, Bambi now wonders the same about NB, and more locally about our Dear Hospital in Sackville:

• 1. What is the percentage of time the ER was closed nighttime in the past year (even if not on paper)?
• 2. How much does it cost to have it open each night?
• 3. What is the volume of patients seen during the day, the eve, in the summer versus the winter times?
• 4. Could we afford to attract more physicians or nurses by offering them better packages (salaries, appealing family benefits, etc.)? Could this help save our hospital in its current format?
• 4b. Could we perhaps consider in the future a two-tier system, mixed public and private? A bit like in some European countries or even in Lebanon? Will this help? Same healthcare providers for all. Same quality but the source of funding of services could differ, depending on the preference/financial capacity of the consumers of health services (the patients).
• 5. Did we think of coordinating with the ambulances or with the nearby out-of-province hospital/ER (Amherst, NS) or the two hospitals in Moncton?
• 6. Could we consider perhaps alternative solutions part of the time?
• 7. If not, is the vocation of an “urgent” centre better than no centre with “an emergency room”?
• 8. Perhaps this reform is even more damaging up North… and no it is not because these regions are francophone and it is a conspiracy against them by Mr./Dr. Lanteigne directly or by his colleague?

The above is just a sample of questions crossing her mind.

Other countries (France, Switzerland, Maine in the USA, etc.) or provinces (NS, ON, etc.) had to take tough decisions like that. Some even closed their emergencies over the summers. Can you imagine? What can we learn from their experience?

It would be financially and logistically impossible to have a hospital in each citizen’s backyard, so to speak. It is realistically (and sadly) sometimes not/no longer possible, for legitimate reasons. Could it be the case here?

This is problematic because money does not grow on trees to be used in a non-sustainable way. This has nothing to do with the language, colour, ethnic origins, seniority on the land, etc. This is a health economic/quality of care issue.

This being said, it is already geographically problematic to be far from a heart centre, if we have a heart event, even during the day (Saint John hospital is far) but, luckily, we have Moncton nearby and the Amherst hospital (at least until now), that has a helipad.

Even to have access to an endodontist (for a root canal treatment), one must travel to Moncton (1 specialist there) or to Halifax or Truro.

Part of the problem is due to our semi-rural areas, to the lack of professionals, to the low population density (in our whole province, we are not even 780,000 citizens). Another part may be due to mismanagement of funds or political choices.

Yes, our population is aging. Yes, winters can be tough. Yes, it is expensive, for students and other local citizens, to come back from Moncton or even Amherst, in a cab, after visiting a hospital. Could the government consider perhaps helping with costs in particular cases like that?

Yes, it would be ideal to keep our hospital existing (and hopefully thriving). However, it is challenging to do so. It is tough to take those unpopular political decisions… and it takes courage to back off when we should.

Some say no consultations happened in the community. Some things are clear to administrators, just from the data and/or from the clinical/operational observations. Sometimes, some consultations happen but in NB all is secretive.

Is it less hypocritical to pretend to consult and then take a decision or not to consult and take the decision?

Bambi hopes that if our hospital will stay, it will be for the good reasons. And if our hospital will change its vocation to be saved or to keep offering quality services, it would be for the good reasons too.

We deserve an explanation about the rationale behind the reform. Our government also deserves fruitful discussions with us to find reasonable solutions together.

Governments come and go… problems stay.

To come back to the CEOs of our two health authorities, and as a commentary to an earlier New Wark Times article, their individual salary is less than in NS [$250 000 $- 274 999 $ and $275 000-$299 999 respectively (public information) versus $372,031, plus benefits in NS, https://www.canhealth.com/2019/08/21/new-interim-leader-at-ns-health-authority/].

It may seem to be high. However, their job is not as easy as we think, as we can see with the current story. Plus, they spend much of their time travelling across our province. They may even feel at times that they live in hotels.  

A few years ago, Bambi and her spouse, learned (at a personal cost) that in NB we can be as corrupt as other places.

Tomorrow, Bambi hopes that NB will not become as indebted as Lebanon. We are sadly not immune to bankruptcy.    

First, here is the original French article by Mr. Facal, published in the Journal of Montreal yesterday:

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/02/29/le-mepris-et-les-mitrailleuses

Second, before presenting a translation further below, Bambi cannot help not to think to herself: Canada seems a bit like Lebanon nowadays (not a good comparison for us), that is with its weak governance and lawless pockets; villages or suburbs where police or the Lebanese army may not dare to enter to intervene (although from time to time they do so, with casualties). Why is Bambi saying this? Because of Kahnawake both in 1990 and, more so, now in 2020. This is what happens when we postpone addressing problems or potential conflicts for decades.

Bambi is old enough as an immigrant to remember the Oka crisis, which began when a check point was erected by Mohawks in Kanesatake. When the Sûreté de Québec (provincial police) intervened, one of its officers got killed.

Lebanon too tried to ignore, pretended all was good, and somehow implicitly accepted the non-sovereignty of its rule of law to all. Some kept their weapons (at the end civil war) and became above the law. They somehow became the law itself, justifying this with the “holiness” of their resistance, especially after a history of being neglected and/or oppressed.   

Anyhow, that is Lebanon in a different continent miles away. What about us here in Québec or Canada? Mr. Joseph Facal’s article may help us understand… or recover our apparently lost 30-year-long memory:

“When the hype overwhelms everything, you have to get back to the facts.

François Legault [Premier or “Prime Minister” of Québec] says there are heavy weapons in Kahnawake.

He says this to make it clear why the police is hesitant to intervene.

And there is an outcry! How does he dare? Can of oil on fire! Pyromaniac!

The next day, oops, we learn… that there are heavy weapons, including machine guns.

On January 7, we found these weapons during a vehicle search. Come on…

Law?

Only the idiots will be surprised.

There were already heavy weapons in 1990, and I do not know that a large operation to clean up the criminalized elements of these territories has taken place since that time.

Obviously, as soon as Prime Minister Legault mentioned these weapons, a Mohawk spokesperson asked for an apology.

Then, in a press release, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake declared:

“The defenders of our territory are unarmed and are peaceful. There are no guns.”

So, it was false and untrue. Who should apologize? Surely not the one who told the truth.

Prime Minister Legault was all the more justified in telling the truth that he cannot count on the Mohawk police.

The chief said: “We have no interest in criminalizing people who defend our rights.”

This gentleman has chosen his side: his own clan before the law, and one wonders what rights he is talking about.

The “right” to machine guns? The “right” to tell the courts to get off? The “right” to paralyze everything? Show me that right.

But when it comes to Indigenous people, the prize for delirium goes to non-Indigenous people who want to be on the right side of morality.

They tolerate behaviours on the part of some Indigenous factions that they would not tolerate from any other group.

In this hesitation, even in this refusal to denounce what one would denounce in anyone else, there is an infantilizing condescension towards Indigenous people, posed as not being required or not capable of being compelled to the same moral behaviours as us.

This amounts to saying: “Them- one must-understand-one must-endure-what-do-you want-they-have-suffered-so-much-because of our-fault-that-we-are-going-to-look-elsewhere-that we will pretend-not-to-see-the-nose-in-the-middle-of-the-face ”.

When contempt is wrapped in good feelings, it remains contempt, but it is even more insidious because it belittles the other by pretending to raise or defend him/her.

A column in La Presse [a French-Canadian daily newspaper] argued that Prime Minister Legault’s statement amounted to saying: “The message is clear: it is war. Over there, on the other side of the barricades, is the enemy. “

At this level of stupidity, it gets dirty to answer.

Responsibility

See also all these people who suddenly become experts in crisis management. Hon, the Prime Minister shouldn’t have …

What, do they know? No, they don’t know.

Balzac described some journalists as “nothingologists”: they talk about everything. However, they are not experts in anything.

Legault was right, and the first person responsible for this mess is Justin Trudeau.”

Bambi discovered this talent today. Bravo! All the best for the rest of the competition.

Bambi disco

Sackville is a small town. From your house or your office (unless your office is in your house), you can hear if demonstrators are on the streets shouting through a microphone or singing slogans, etc.

Yesterday was Friday February 28, 2020. It was a big event in one of NB prestigious universities located in Sackville (Bambi will name Mount Allison University ?). It was open house day where potential students, and their families, come to visit the campus and town. They meet with university staff, professors, and students. They spend a whole day at the university to get a flavour of what to expect, if they chose this place for their undergraduate studies in the coming year.

From a promotional perspective, this day is definitely one of the most significant ones to charm and recruit new students.

It is on such a day that a group of environmental “crusaders” chose to pressure the school with their divest from fossil fuel passionate activism. This is likely not very appealing to visitors (perhaps quite attractive to some others, who knows?).

Bambi could hear the: “Keep it in the ground” chant (in referral to fossil fuel or oil). It was like a loud mantra repeated over and over to the point that Bambi thought to herself: “Thank goodness, I do not have kids to send them to our Canadian schools nowadays” (yes, there is a good side to everything, including childlessness).

Why is Bambi saying this? Not because she does not think that it is noble to take care of our planet/environment. Not because she does not think highly of those students or professionals with them who want to feel congruent in their lifestyle (with their morality). On the contrary, we do need people who stand up for their values and who keep our political elites accountable on the environmental front. Thank you for this. However, it is a different story when environmentalism becomes too radical to the level we are observing nowadays in Canada and in the Western world by extension. Bambi would not be surprised even if in the next few years, we may see a new form of terrorism, an environmental one (a little bit like the FLQ or Northern Island militias of the past or Islamism or any form of radical movement, independent of the noble cause underlying it).

It is with this spirit that Bambi woke up this morning to news of the death of a great scientist and apparently wise man, Dr. Freeman Dyson:

https://www.businessinsider.com/legendary-physicist-freeman-dyson-death-age-2020-2

Many of our town’s loud activists will likely dismiss Dr. Dyson altogether or won’t stop to listen to his insights and understand the nuance he is bringing to the climate change (or global warming) popular narrative.

If you are like Dr. Dyson, someone who does not accuse people who do not agree with you of being traitors, you may wish to listen to this interview with him, conducted in 2015.

Rest in peace Dr. Dyson. Thank you for your long career, your contribution to science, and for your common sense.