Today at Tocumwal, NSW there is a rally in support of their local doctor.
Doctor Rao has been the only doctor there for may years. He was the main instigator for buiding the hospital there.
In rural Australia,it can be very hard to attract good doctors: Most doctors perfer to stay in the city.
Now it seems there have been some allegations against Dr Rao about his treatment of an elderly patient, and he has been banned from working and is under investigation by the homicide squad. This is depite the fact that many eldely locals have been treated at this hospital, and have died as is natural. A local told me that the general feeling of people is very positive towards this doctor and his practices.
That is why today there is a rally in support of him, meeting at the town hall.
Doctor Rao is from India, and 20 years ago it would have been unthinkable that the town would support someone foreign-born like this. But it shows that the town has accepted him (and others) into their life. A resident of tocumwal said that she hoped this would be an example to nearby towns which have large immigrant populations.
Tocumwal will probably have difficulty replacing their doctor if he is not allowed to resume work, and if they do it wont be a doctor they have known for so long. Without turning this into a debate about euthanasia, Doctors should always have the interests of patients at heart, and they might treat and elderly patient different from a younger one, in terms of the levels of painkillers they are willing to perscribe. There is nothing wrong with this: People who are old and sick deserve to live in dignity.
If all the locals are in support of this doctor, why is there so much interferance from state authorities? Why does the government what to meddle and enforce the law down to the smallest point. People have forgotton what it means to turn a blind eye and get on with life.
Paul
February 25, 2007
Read this article for background to this post.
Basicly ist is describing people who use recycled water to water their gardens to save water and keep within water restrictions and how they are scared that their nieghbors and others will ‘dob them in’ for wasting water.
I think people who are doing the right thing and are scared that people will accuse them of doing the wrong thing should stop living in fear - Remember two things:
- In Australia you are innocent until proven guilty.
Don’t fear ‘A knock on the door’. If the ‘water police’ knock, tell them to come back with a search warrant. And if/when they bother to do that then you dont have anything to hide anyway but put the burden of proof onto them. Dont pre-emptively try to make yourself look innocent, its a waste of effort and you will lose more and more rights as time goes on.
- The whole issue of not watering gardens is rubbish anyway.
People with gardens are being made scapegoats by the Victorian government, since they failed to provide infrastructure for the future, and even now in the middle of a water crisis they do nothing but say ‘use less’. And they dont seem to care that much more water is used in the home than in the garden, and that far more water is used by industry than private homes. And there are NO restrictions on industrial use of water.
Therefore people who are using waste water to recycle their water are in the right both legally and morally.
An interesting experiment would be to call the ‘Dob in a Water Cheat’ hotline and dob yourself in…Just to see what powers they actually do have. Maybe everyone should call the number and report themselves so they would be overwhelmed and the dobbing system wouldnt work.
As you can probably tell I am against having dobbing hotlines. It seems Victorian government’s response to anything is to turn people against each other as a distraction so they wont get them blame. I think they are completely incompetent. I think the only reason they win elections is using this scapegoat tactic so that it always looks like something is being done to solve problems…when in fact nothing is being done.
Paul
January 14, 2007
