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Dr. Zafar Essak, MD - Vancouver, BC - April 5, 2023

Having worked for 40 years as a family physician in BC, when I heard the media announcements recently: that on April 3, 2023 vaccine mandates will be lifted on BC public service government workers but not on health care workers until it can become a permanent condition of work in health care, and that we may see only combined vaccines in the fall; it struck me that it’s time we had a real chat. This can’t wait.

Politics is often seen as a glamorous, shiny and sometimes slimy affair. But, seriously, politics is about how we make collective decisions and manage the affairs of our society in our democracy.

There are three things I believe we need to talk about now:

Dr. Zafar Essak, MD - Vancouver, BC - October 6, 2024

I decided to write a series of posts covering different aspects of our health care system and government to help us apply our thinking to the problems and solutions. We need a change in our expectations of professional leaders, government leaders and how government works if we are to save our publicly funded health care system and our democratic rights.

Part 1. How health care administration over took funding for doctors.

Part 2. Early closure of debate erodes our parliamentary democracy.

Part 3. The importance of open dialog and informed consent.

Part 4. No consent called "passive consent" as BC elementary and high school students are presented survey questionnaires.

Let them eat cake: Why I don't believe Premier David Eby and the BC NDP have what it takes to fix the health care system.

Stay tuned for more to come.

Dr Zafar Essak - Vancouver, BC - October 10, 2024

Part 4 in a series covering different aspects of our health care system and government. Let’s apply our thinking to the problems and solutions.

Part 4. No consent called "passive consent" as BC elementary and high school students are presented survey questionnaires.

First, you may not even realize that in BC elementary and high schools, students of all ages (early years, middle years and youth) have been presented with surveys to complete. This has been done without requiring parental consent or even awareness.

The BC NDP Government refers to it as "passive consent". Teachers are providing children with tablet computers to answer questions about themselves, their families and others living in the household. Children who are reluctant and don’t know if they should do this are reassured it is all fine, they can trust this is all okay.

Some children may be too young to realize that it’s like talking to strangers. These days we should all know the dangers are worse with computers online. So, why would we be teaching young children to reveal information into a computer? (1)

Furthermore, who is PopDataBC and what do they do? Who funds it?

Dr. Zafar Essak, MD - Vancouver, BC - October 6, 2024.

Part 1 in a series covering different aspects of our health care system and government. Let’s apply our thinking to the problems and solutions.

Part 1. How health care administration over took funding for doctors.

Every day we hear reports that our health care system is broken and having difficulty keeping up with the health needs of patients and people throughout BC and across the country. Politicians say it’s a lot of unexpected circumstances, they’re doing the best that can be done; they're following what the experts are telling them, and we should trust them to carry on with it.

Are these unexpected circumstances or are they foreseeable outcomes?