You can leave messages in the comment section of the blog. Or, for more privacy, you can contact me at skyblue@autistici.org
WHY DO I WRITE THIS BLOG
While I am a Canadian writing about Canadian experiences, I have had people read my posts because they want to learn about Canada and compare it to the situation in their own country.
I am also a regular person, with no medical affiliation, who reads a lot. I write from the perspective of a regular person who tries to make sense of it all.
I am a person who believes that if you don’t stand up for your rights you won’t have them. And the best time to stand up for your rights is when you don’t need them. Although in my case this started because my rights were violated (see posts under hospitals/authorities).
I went to a hospital in British Columbia and had my rights violated. They asked me questions such as my religion, my occupation, who employed me, how long I had lived at my current address, etc. I knew enough about the privacy laws to recognize that some of the questions being asked were illegal and that I was legally entitled to know why they were asking these questions. I was told that if I did not answer the questions I would not be admitted to the hospital. I did not know, at the time, that they could not legally refuse me admittance to the hospital.
It’s interesting that things could have ended basically at the beginning by the hospitals offering me an apology and promising to remove the illegally obtained information; but they didn’t. The health authority, which ran the hospital, danced around the questions ‘why are you asking this question, who specifically has access to my personal information and how is my information protected’, no doubt hoping that I would give up. The health authority and later other health authorities, to whom I directed similar questions except the ‘my’ turned to ‘our’, wrote me long letters full of interesting information, obviously hoping that I wouldn’t notice that they didn’t answer my questions. I did notice. So, I would ask the same questions again, and again… I asked basic questions, questions that should have been readily available to patients and citizens of the province and probably Canada. And it just snowballed.
Unable to get answers from the health authorities, I went to the people. I started handing out flyers because I was disgusted and infuriated that the medical system was violating people’s rights and feeding off the vulnerable, the sick, including newborn babies, and I felt people had a right to know.
I started the blog because I had gotten so much information from the health authorities (except answers to my questions), that I believed that I should share it with other citizens because they weren’t likely to get this information.
I expanded from blogging just about hospitals and privacy, to other topics such as politics. Things were being done and said that seemed wrong, peculiar and deceptive but I couldn’t get answers, much less honest answers, certainly not from the politicians. As a citizen of this country I felt I had no power so I took back that power, or at least some of it, by writing about it.
I have told people about certain experiences I’ve had and heard comments like ‘Oh, I thought I was the only one (who had that experience)’ or ‘I didn’t know they would do that (or that was happening); good to know’ so I write about some of my experiences so people will know that they are not the only ones and to raise awareness about certain things that are happening so people can take precautionary measures if necessary. I read a lot so sometimes I connect the dots between the articles I read. I also hope to encourage others to write about their experiences because I think so much is just not written about that affects regular people, so much is covered up, so much is propaganda by the politicians and friends, and sometimes that includes the media, that people don’t know what is really happening.
I am not a techie so I welcome constructive suggestions on my blog set-up (preferably with details on how to make the changes).