Letters for Sept. 22

A time for reflection

Lately I have been reading all the reasons that folks in Spokane have created to keep their anti-vaccine status.

While interesting and truly not founded in science, I am not here to judge. They have the right to behave as they see fit.

What I would like to say is this: Their decision has helped a more child-friendly variant to emerge.

Their decision has canceled all elective surgeries and procedures in our area hospitals.

Their decision has filled hospital beds to capacity.

Their decision has sent nurses in other areas of practice back to the bedside and is now preventing them from hugging and seeing older and more at-risk family members.

Their decision has cost our high school sport teams to miss games due to COVID protocol.

I am not here to judge them, but I would like them to notice that others are

living with their decision, too. Also, that while if and when they become ill with this virus, or their loved ones, they will be cared for. They will have a bed, maybe in a conference room or a classroom, originally used to train nurses and much-needed health care providers, or the hospital chapel where family would usually go for comfort and prayer.

They will be given every opportunity to become well again.

There are risks and consequences to our actions. Take a moment to reflect on them.

Linda Bruno

Spokane

Health care rationing

A woman with a possibly cancerous lump in her breast, another woman and a man, both of whom need surgeries involving their gallbladders, are all having their health needs put on hold because foolish, unvaccinated individuals with COVID have been given priority.

Those unvaccinated individuals with COVID now clogging the hospitals made a choice not to take advantage of the vaccine. It is too bad that they developed the disease and now are requiring hospitalization, but they took the risk and should now be left to their own devices. They should not be receiving care while a woman with a lump in her breast endures the mental anguish of waiting for a biopsy, a diagnosis and treatment, nor while the man and woman needing gall bladder procedures are told in essence to suck up the pain they are experiencing.

Whomever is responsible for making the decisions to care for the unvaccinated over those needing surgeries should rethink their priorities. Otherwise, this is evidence of a health care system totally out of whack and running amok.

Janet Burnett Grossman

Spokane

Nethercutt got it right

I recently saw an op-ed (Aug. 31) by former U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt on the need for a competitive energy market. I felt the need to chime in. Nethercutt is exactly right. As the energy landscape changes, we need to ensure that we have the best tools available to meet those challenges.

Both new state clean energy standards (CETA) and a new federal standard will require new technologies and whole a lot of innovation.

The best way to get there is a more competitive energy market.

While our state is a leader in hydropower, we have to do more. Nethercutt highlights a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) as one possible solution. RTOs are working well in other parts of the county. Nevada, Colorado, and Oregon are all looking at an RTO. Currently, 67% of the U.S. energy market is managed via an RTO model.

While our city considers limiting our energy choices via mandates against natural gas, we need Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and those in Olympia to find ways to drive innovation and provide choices for consumers.

Kelly Lotze

Spokane