February 4, 2022
- Hundreds lose their medical practitioner
- Vancouver Island RCMP officer charged with assault
- Scene around Town – Benches returning with the robins!
- St. Paul & the Broken Bones, watch fabulous live performance in Seattle
Reality Check – new clinic not taking patients, hundreds lose their medical practitioner
Much publicity accompanied the recent move of the Flowerstone clinic to its “permanent location” at Memorial / Fourth Avenues. Unfortunately, the news as reported was incomplete and misleading to say the least.
Additional context needs to be added to the photo op and media release content regurgitated in the PQB News coverage, Flowerstone family health clinic open in permanent Qualicum Beach location. A closer look at the accompanying photo reveals a small poster on the clinic’s window behind MLA Adam Walker.
In ALL CAPS the notice shouts out the following: “We do not accept walk-ins even if you are on the waitlist. The Health Registry will contact you if and when a doctor or NP office is available to accept new patients. There is no waitlist for this office.”
Thank you to the reader who sent us this close-up of the poster.
Meanwhile, in the very same building, Dr. Jacques Simenhoff is packing up his stethoscope and leaving town. No orderly transfer of his roster of patients to other practitioners. No access has been provided to former patients to their personal health records, of which Dr. Simenhoff is the custodian, according to several of his former patients.
Adding these two events together, there is no discernible increase in the availability of primary care services in our Town, just continued chaos. There may be a discernible and welcome difference in practice style at the Flowerstone clinic; however, it is still limited by a narrow focus on the allopathic model of medicine. — GS
Vancouver Island RCMP officer charged with assault
Many readers have expressed frustration with the lack of public accountability of the RCMP as our Town’s police department. Criminal charges laid this week indicate that police misconduct doesn’t always go unchallenged.
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022, Paul Mittelsteadt, a former constable with the Sidney/North Saanich RCMP, was charged with assault as a result of an altercation involving an in-custody accused person that occurred in Saanich while Mittelsteadt was on duty July 12, 2020.
As reported by the Comox Valley Record, “the charges fall under section 266 of the Criminal Code, which defines assault as the intentional application of force without reason or consent.”
Only one month after the incident of alleged assault, Mittelsteadt was promoted to lead the Sidney RCMP detachment’s Community Policing efforts. According to a report at the time by Peninsula News Review’s Wolfgang Depner, the RCMP detachment commander Wayne Conley stated “So it has been a while getting that position filled again – but we got a good guy [Mittelsteadt] in there.”
Mittelsteadt is scheduled to make his first appearance in Victoria Provincial Court on February 21. If convicted, Mittelsteadt could face a prison term of up to 5 years. — GS
Scene around Town – Benches returning with the robins!
A reader happily reported that several of Qualicum Beach’s missing benches have returned!
As many residents of QB are aware, our Town benches mysteriously began to disappear about one year ago. People started noticing. Then they started writing the Town administration — we want our benches back.
Several benches that had been removed from the cemetery are apparently now back in place, and another formerly missing bench was spotted in its usual residential location on a nearby street, an indication perhaps that the rest will soon be restored to their useful and welcome locations. — LS
St. Paul & the Broken Bones
St. Paul and the Broken Bones have just released a new recording that is getting rave reviews. Here’s a close-to-home performance from a few years ago that will whet your appetite for more. Seattle radio station KEXP and host Troy Nelson presents St. Paul & the Broken Bones performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded April 19, 2014, this superb live performance includes their songs: Like a Mighty River, It’s Midnight, Call Me and Grass Is Greener. — LS