I have been pondering the implications of two recent articles – ‘Home away from home’ (Aug. 11) and ‘Justice is not being served?’ (Aug. 4).

In the first article, our two MLAs are shown while touring the new seniors’ facility which is very nice.

However, they seem oblivious to the need of the 230 Central Albertans who are on a waiting list and are in need of care.

We have two facilities now, which are old but available, the Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor.

In the second article, the federal government is gong to spend billions of dollars on new jails because of the “un-reported” crimes.

On one hand the provincial government knows of a need – 230 on a waiting list for long term care – and is ignoring it and the federal government is going to spend billions of dollars because it is concerned about the “amount of crime that goes unreported” and so the government is going on guess work.

This doesn’t make sense to me.

Another line in the first article causes me concern – “A high number of rooms have single washrooms.” I do not know the government’s definition of “high number”. It suggests to me that there are communal bathrooms. A bathroom in each room should be a must.

My speculation is that the government wants the seniors to be friendlier with each other and to socialize more.

I envision the following scenes as the patients hurry to the communal washroom.

The patient’s bladder is saying, “hurry, hurry, hurry”, while the government is saying – “no, no, no”, visit awhile.

These two articles are very troubling. On one hand, the needs of 230 folk are being ignored while more prisons are being built even though the crime rate is down.

Alice Williamson

Red Deer