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To The Editor:

I would like to comment on your editorial of Monday March 24 on the proposed health reform entitled "Murphy should stand his ground."

I believe that the two health authorities should have an obligation to offer health services in both official languages.

In this regard, my position is similar to the position of the editorial writer of the Times & Transcript.

The editorial writer also expresses concern about the "slide to duality."

Fine, but where is the duplication in the present system?

Let's take the case of tertiary or highly specialized services such as neurosurgery, burn units, neonatal care, as well as cardiac or trauma services. These services are currently offered in two or even three English-speaking hospitals but are not available in a single French-speaking hospital in the province.

Is this the type of equality and equity that your newspaper supports? If so, this is where your editorial writer and I part company.

In another editorial on March 21, you suggested that English-speaking parents who want an immersion experience for their children enroll them in the French-language school system.

Acadians from the Metro Moncton region fought long and hard to obtain their health and education services from institutions that could function in their own language. I remember too well the tension and the dissension of the late sixties and early seventies. I do not want to rehash the past but neither do I want to relive it.

But it should be clearly understood that we are not about to abandon those principles that guided our actions decades ago.

I was actively involved as a member of the school board or a municipal councillor in Moncton for a quarter of a century and I know that progress was not always easy.

However, I have seen tremendous advances in linguistic and cultural relations in the Metro Moncton area in the past decades because we, both English-speakers and French-speakers, embraced patience, tolerance and mutual understanding and respect. This was possible because we worked together. We should think twice before destroying our carefully constructed heritage.

I say yes to access to health services in both languages. The interests of the patient should always come first. Equality and equity in the structure of the health system are also essential elements of a modern and progressive New Brunswick.

Spring is the time to move the clocks ahead and to look to the future with hope. I trust that the editorial writers of the Times & Transcript will not turn back the clock (or the calendar for that matter by some 40 years!)

Yvon J. Goguen,

Metro Moncton

(Via e-mail)