Last night Global News featured the first of a two-part report on a new danger being investigated regarding the use of the curly CFL light bulbs. This time the problem has to due with skin damage as a result of exposure to the strong UV light.
Apparently Health Canada is in the process of testing the bulbs to assess exactly how much UV radiation is being emitted.
However, it is now being recommended that Encapsulated (double envelope) bulbs be used rather than the open ones, and if you have any of the latter take care to limit exposure.
This comes after other concerns and rumours about the bulbs being dangerous in terms of explosions and high mercury content which makes them problematic for disposal.
Just another example of governments bowing to the Environmentalist lobby without first doing extensive research on the implications.
Perhaps this could be an informal discussion point at the Conservative Convention.
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Update: Do I need a haz mat suit? And other questions… – We don’t buy it.
As a firefighter, I have to say that the “New Green”, and environmentally friendly bulbs also have a bad habit of starting fires.
The ballast tends to overheat and starts a fire at the base of the bulb.
But… they use less electricity, I guess thats the trade off, burn your house down, but save electricity, sounds good to me!
I hate the idea of the whole thing — being told what I have to do without first doing any testing. In fact, McGuinty wanted all regular bulbs removed, eliminating any choices. What nonsense.
“In fact, McGuinty wanted all regular bulbs removed, eliminating any choices. What nonsense.”
Honestly, is there anything that man doesn’t control in the lives of Ontarians?
After reading this, I am glad that I think they are UGLY and just turn off my lights. BTW, candles work too. lol
Yeah, well the sad thing is that the feds bought into this garbage too.
Thanks for the insight from a Firefighter’s angle, Robin. Much appreciated.
After having what I will call a ‘catastrophic failure’ of one of these bulbs in a kitchen fixture, a few months ago … the noxious fumes and smoke was unreal … I then removed ALL of those that remained, from our lamps and fixtures, and returned unopened packages, plus one partial package (Costco to their credit gave me my money back, after hearing my story).
I then went out and bought a fairly Large supply of the tried and true, SAFE type that has served us well for decades. (Yes, McGuinty’s insatiable appetite to control our lives scares me too … thus my ‘larger than normal purchase).
We try to do our bit for the environment, and save money, turning off lights in unoccupied rooms, turn the heat down, etc., BUT I am not about to mindlessly jump on the Activist Environmentalist Scare Train any time soon. Oh, and to our good friend David Suzuki and company … Please stop trying to brain-wash our young kids with your drivel, and those annoying heavily financed tv ads.
I’m going to go off-topic on you again Joanne.
My wife is an Occupational Health Nurse responsible for three hospitals in the Niagara region. She’s just found out that a staff nurse who is unable to return to work at her old job because of an injury is taking the Niagara Health System, my wife and two other staffers (one from rehab and a supervisor from the affected department) to a Human Rights Tribunal because she can’t be accommodated to a job and hours of her liking. She’s accusing them of discriminating against her because of her injury.
My wife is devastated. She’s been dealing with this person for over a year and has had absolutely no cooperation and its come to this. Luckily she’s been documenting everything and has a very good time-line of discussions laid out.
Her role within the system is to look after the well-being of hospital staff and though she should be doing educational work to help staff prevent injuries she finds that most of her time is spent in meetings with union reps arguing about how best to accommodate the injured parties. Sometimes these meetings involve lawyers.
There is a lot to this story that I can’t disclose, in fact I’m not even sure I should be adding this to your blog, but we have to be aware of the depths to which the whole Human Rights scam has sunk.
Remember the guy who took the restaurant to a Human Rights Tribunal because he was told to smoke his medical joint outside?
Well, now it’s possible for an agrieved party to take their employer and staff to ‘court’ if things don’t go their way over a return-to-work routine. Even if the injury happened away from work.
What’s even worse here is the fact that the Niagara Health System has had their lawyer draw up a document for the three named staffers to sign that basically says that the NHS lawyer will represent them but if the judgement goes against them they’ll be on their own with respect to any financial settlement. (The injured party is suing for a million dollars.) Further more, any evidence brought forward at the original tribunal will be available to the NHS to use against their own staffers in any subsequent court battles between them.
All three staffers signed the document but one has since rescinded and will go it alone. She’s worried because her and her husband own a big farm that they very well might lose if this case is lost.
I’m of the opinion that as NHS staffers they were all representing the NHS as per policies and procedures set forth and as such can not be held responsible for any actions that may result. I can understand if one acted maliciously but that is not the case here and I feel that the NHS should throw all of its weight behind their staff and fight this tooth and nail together.
I told my wife to stick with her original plan which was to treat this as a learning experience and go with the flow but now that her co-worker has opted out and will hire her own lawyer she’s wondering if she should do the same.
This all comes as we prepare to fly off to Florida tomorrow night for a one week vacation but she’s even talking about cancelling that so she can remain behind and deal with this.
NeilD
Joanne,
Dalton the Bright McGuinty is acting in good faith so you cannot just go ahead and dump it on him.
That magic phrase “acting in good faith” is included in almost every piece of legislation coming out of Queen’s Park and it is always connected to complete denial of responsibility of government officials for their decisions and actions.
Have a faith in provincial government and try to be obidient Guinea Pig in never ending experiment on human population of this province (cheaper and faster than experiments on animals).
…This all comes as we prepare to fly off to Florida tomorrow night for a one week vacation but she’s even talking about cancelling that so she can remain behind and deal with this.
Oh my gosh, Neil. That sounds like an absolute nightmare. I wonder if Sandy has any thoughts on this situation since she lives in Niagara?
The last things those bulbs are is environmentally friendly.
NeilD, I am sorry to hear about your wife’s problem. I have no expertise whatsoever in such matters, but I wonder if contacting your local MP or your MPP would help?
Or failing that, would contacting Ezra Levant, who has been battling with Human Rights Tribunals on other matters, help?
Or are there any other lawyers among the Blogging Tories who could help?
I hope you and your wife can resolve this problem to your satisfaction.
Nicely said, Gabby. I join you in wishing Neil and his wife some kind of resolution and that they might be able to go on their holiday and somehow leave their troubles behind for the time being.
Joanne,
I got an email back from the The Commissioner of Canada Elections regarding my reports on alleged electoral fraud. My reports were forwarded to proper Department for consideration.
Cheers,
While I am not employed by the NHS, I frequently have contact with the named agency. Like all bureaucracies they are first and foremost concerned with protecting the entity not the individual.
In this respect, NHS has a history of being extremely ‘top heavy’ and prepared to sacrifice people for the “good of the agency”.
I would be very dubious in accepting anything from the legal branch of this agency and particularly where the HRC is involved.
I would strongly suggest that any document prepared by the NHS legal branch should be reviewed by an independent person, if possible.
I that respect, I would fax or forward a copy to Ezra, he may be able to help
You know, this is the problem with our modern Canada. If the person who sustained the injury cannot perform the duties according to her job description then, sorry, you’re out of the job. Period. Why should the rest of the staff have to accommodate her? Sheesh, she had an injury so now she can find a job which she can do or take the insurance money or whatever. People like that woman piss me off royally – selfish and unreasonable. The NHS should stand up to her and tell her and the HRC to piss off. The HRC is not only abused but it also abuses the accused. This should be escalated right up to the PMO and perhaps our PM, in his wisdom (and he is a very wise and rational person) will intervene and perhaps modify the HRC’s usurped powers.
On topic, however, I have mostly CFLs in my home and, to date, have had no problem. I installed them to save on hydro since our beloved McGuinty wants to bring in TOD hydro pricing – “to be fair”, he says. Baloney. It’s a cash grab which will hurt all of us due to costs passed on by businesses and as well, it will sure hurt seniors who are home during the day. I buy high-quality CFLs and, as I say, no problems so far.
Yikes, is all I can say about Neil’s wife’s situation. However, I can say what I would do if I were in that situation.
I would get my own lawyer because: (1) I would need and want some control and input of the situation; and (2) I would want my own lawyer to ask for costs, either from the plaintiff or the NHS.
In other words, I would never hand over my life and financial outcome to a forced situation. A lawyer who represents a person is a lawyer who acts on THEIR behalf. A lawyer for the NHS does not act in the best interests of a staff member. They act in the best interests of the corporation.
Thats my opinion for what it’s worth.
And, yes, “IF” and that is a big “IF,” this case is coming up soon, I would postpone Florida to get a lawyer in place.
And, when finding a lawyer, I would ask one that I know to recommend someone who does this kind of litigation FREQUENTLy — even if they are located in Hamilton or beyond. In other words, I wouldn’t want a real estate or estate lawyer doing it.
Hope this helps.
If Neil and his wife don’t know any lawyers who can make such a recommendation, he can e-mail me and I’ll give him a name of someone I trust who can make an appropriate referral.
cruxofthematter@ymail.com
I’m going out for awhile but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.
“I hope you and your wife can resolve this problem to your satisfaction.”
Ditto!!!! What a scary dilemma. We all need to worry about this everyday. Crazy USA style, ’sue anyone and everyone’? Is that what we want in this country?
Sorry, O/T Joanne, but I am appalled at these HRC stories that keep surfacing. Where is personal accountability and moving on? Is that just simply naive?
Save the courts for the REAL criminals, for G*d sake.
Sandy, I understand what you’re saying but the whole situation should not exist in the first place. We all have limitations whether we like it or not. This woman who is suing the NHS is one of a new breed of Canadian who is a trouble maker who refuses to accept and deal with her limitations and instead of looking for an alternative, selfishly expects others to accommodate her and when that proves futile, runs to the HRC which will, of course, make a meal of it. The NHS should stand up to this trouble maker and apprise her of a fact of life – she can’t do the job so move on and find an alternative.
I, for example, cannot perform the duties of a firefighter due to physical limitations. So, what should I do? Sue the city because the city is discriminating against me? No. That would be selfish and stupid. Look, years ago, a very petite woman took some firefighting organization in Saskatchewan to court because she was rejected for lack of physical strength. She claimed that the requirements were based on male capacity and there wasn’t a seperate set of requirements for women. I don’t know about you, but when I need to be rescued from a fire, I want a strong person who can carry me to safety, not some petite person – male or female. There are lots of big, strong women and men out there but this short and petite woman was not one of them. Still, she took them to court. Why it even went that far, I don’t know, but it did. No wonder our courts are clogged and our jobs are going offshore.
BEC – MacLeans did more than one article on the HRC and on one or two women, in particular, who clearly abuse their respective positions. The HRC did a number on MacLeans over some frivolous claim from a muslim group. And, yet some Toronto mosque is allowed to spread hatred toward Jewish and Christian people without a peep. The HRC is rendered useless by the behaviour of the people involved as well as accepting totally frivolous and unjustified cases.
EofE — Well, it’s up to Neil and his wife of course. The problem is that, in my experience, companies don’t stand by their staff anymore. Suing for a million dollars? I didn’t think the human rights commissions were where you sued — rather where you made a complaint.
This woman should be happy to get disability benefits.
I actually had experience with a situation like this a year ago September when I had angioplasty at the Hamilton Cardiac Centre. I was in the St. Catharines General and had to be taken by ambulance to Hamilton. I needed a nurse with me in case I needed care. Well, no one in the observation section of emergency wanted to go so they sent a nurse who was on partial workload due to a health issue. That is all she did that day. She sat with me for the forty minute drive and then sat with someone on the return to St. Catharines.
She was very nice but said she couldn’t work in a ward. I couldn’t help wondering what she was doing — rather than getting involved in some retraining to do a different job altogether — something less physically stressful than nursing.
Anyway, my best wishes to Neil and his wife. If they go to Florida, I hope they can ignore this for a few days. One hopes the HRC tells this woman to undergo retraining.
Society doesn’t owe anyone a job — yet strangely some seem to think we do, even when they can’t handle the job anymore. Strange world we now live in.
Thank for the tips everyone.
A preliminary hearing into the complaint is being held next week.
Susanne, my wife, has called her nursing association rep who has provided some support and advice. On their advice she contacted her malpractice insurance company and they’re going to act on her behalf. She has five million in malpractice insurance and I’m told that that is common in the health industry. This is what these leeches want to get their hands on.
It’s bad enough to be taken to a Human Rights Tribunal but to be told by your employer that you’ll be on you own in any judgement against you is what really stings.
My own advice to her is to enjoy our first ever cruise and then, when she gets back to her job, use the extensive knowledge she’s gained working with compensation cases and go on fully-paid stress leave for three or four months. She can use that time to look for employment elsewhere but it will probably be outside of her nursing expertise. After twenty eight years she’s had enough.
And people wonder why the medical industry is in such dire straits.
NeilD
And people wonder why the medical industry is in such dire straits.
Boy you’ve got that right, Neil. I plan to address the topic of the lamentable state of our health care in the very near future.
Try to have a good time. I like your plan about going her on stress leave. Sounds like a great idea.
Life is too short to have to deal with crap like that.
Unless you tend to stand 1 inch from your light bulbs, I wouldn’t be too concerned.