An eventful day at Barrie

Day 5 of our tour took us to Barrie. We started our day rallying the public in front of the Pharmasave pharmacy and trying to maximize the number of people notified about the healthcare cuts. Although we were not at a very busy street, we still did get many honks of support. When the media came (and did so quite late), a few team members, who were expected to be interviewed, had done so splendidly. When one of the reporters came to take close-up pictures of our posters, he had unexpectedly come up to me for an interview. On top of that, he had come with many questions that are used to provoke rather controversial and potentially aggressive answers from me.

Things that I learned from that experience and have done as much as I could:

1) Do not look innocent and young – looking like that may contribute to you being picked on by reporters.
2) If you are picked on by media, play their game. Do not give information or words that would lead to controversy. Say your message and nothing else but your message. If you give them nothing but that, they will have no choice but to broadcast your message.
3) If you don’t have anything else to say and/or you are tired of repeating your message a million times, put a pause and wait until they are tired of your silence.
4) Greatest one of all: stay calm with a poker face. No matter how hard your heart is pounding with anxiety and fear, don’t let the media smell your fear. They will feed on it otherwise and take control of the interview.

On top of that, a gentleman, who was for these cuts on professional allowances, had a rather animated and long debate with some of the pharmacy students. The media had caught their eyes on this discussion and ended up filming much of the encounter. They also conducted a short interview with him. I personally was not part of the discussion; however, it was obvious that the gentleman’s words could deeply affect the effectiveness of that media event. We shall see how the reporters manipulate this information…

Still, it was heart-warming to see pharmacists who are very supportive of our efforts and are also trying to put their two cents recorded to be posted on our blogs and to the media. The short video clip that he agreed to record with us will be posted shortly...

What made today even more eventful was the encounter with a policeman who attempted to fine each of us $150 for loitering on the streets. He gave one of our organizers a very hard time by swearing profusely and intimidating him to submit to the fine. Loitering? We were merely making people aware of the healthcare funding issues by gathering support on the streets! There is freedom of speech after all, and we were doing it peacefully without hindering traffic, disturbing people and breaking any laws.

Later on, we also did canvassing and collected signatures for our petition to the McGuinty government. Although there were fewer people than Peterborough who signed the petition and/or were aware of the issues, it was nice to spread awareness to the public and allow them to think more deeply about the cuts on pharmacy services for patients. Ultimately, that’s all I want. Once the facts are out, these people should have the brains to think it through logically and come up with the same conclusions for which we are advocating.

TO MASS MEDIA, THE POLITICIANS AND ANYONE WHO IS KEEPING UP WITH THE MEDIA WITH RESPECT TO OUR TOUR:

We are NOT pawns of the pharmacy movement in this issue of healthcare cuts. We are students of the profession who partake in this tour because we are passionate about helping patients, providing the best possible care to them and advocating for a healthier population. We are here because we are worried about the future of our profession and the quality of our healthcare system. Although we are only a piece of the entire healthcare puzzle, we try to play our part to educate patients and empower them to live lives of better quality of life. We do this by our own will because we want to, not because we are forced to. Please get the facts right.