The Germaine Truth: 2004-09-27

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    The Germaine Truth — Sunday, September 27, 2004

    September Index:

    Arlingtons Missing from Restin’ Easy

    by Howard Applegate

    September 26th– Last night Germaine was the scene of what appears to be a terrible crime. The call came into Sheriff Sweet at 10:01 p.m. Albert Arlington was calling in to report that someone, at that very moment was driving out of the Restin’ Easy parking lot in a military style vehicle. 

    By the time that the Sheriff and his Deputy arrived, the guest in the room was gone and so were Albert and Susannah Arlington.

    “Looked like a Hummer to him,” Sweet said. Arlington told Sweet that he had gotten up to go to the bathroom when he heard a car pull into the parking lot. He looked out the window and saw a vehicle come to a stop in front of the room at the end of the motel, room #17.

    According to Arlington, “Someone got out and stood at the door and in a moment or two went into the room.”

    Arlington told Sweet that it seemed suspicious to him so he kept watching and in no more than two or three minutes the driver got out of the vehicle and went in the room. 

    Arlington said he had his hand on the phone by then, ready to call the Sheriff, when the man driving the vehicle appeared again at the door of Room 17 with a body slung over his shoulder, which he dumped in the back seat of the vehicle. It was at that moment that Arlington dialed 911. 

    “It sounded like someone got hurt in that room and I didn’t know what I was going to find. Two people go into a room and one comes out carrying the other one . . . it sounds like trouble to me.” Deputy Shawn Hinterteil met Sheriff Sweet at the motel. 

    Both officers say that by the time they got there all they found was a trail of blood leading to a pool of blood on the floor of the bathroom. 

    There appeared to have been a body in the bed, but on closer examination it proved to be a couple of pillows covered by a blanket. 

    The bathroom window was open. Sheriff Sweet said that he believes that the guest, registered as Maria Garcia, may not be who she claimed to be.

     “She left her rental car behind. Now if I was innocent, I’d be back as soon as police officers arrived. Shoot, if nothing else, I wouldn’t want Hertz on my behind about not returning that rental car.”

    Sweet would not answer questions regarding the Arlingtons except to say that in the interest of apprehending the perpetrators there were certain details that must be kept from the public. We citizens of Germaine are left to wait for word about our friends and relatives, Albert and Susannah. 

    A prayer vigil began by dawn in the lobby of the Restin’ Easy by their fellow congregants at Mary of the Immaculate Heart Catholic Church. Lucy Charlebois said “The vigil will continue until our dear friends come home to us.

     

    Emergency Preparedness Tabled Again

    by Howard Applegate

    September 6th– Wilbur County Board of Health’s regular monthly meeting convened at the courthouse on Tuesday, September 4. Items on the agenda included emergency preparedness in the event of a biological attack and the progress of physician recruitment efforts.

    Matt Thompson, Board Chair, asked fellow board members, Albert Arlington and Truman Hedrick,”Will Germaine die for lack of a doctor?”

    “Little Germaine Van Bibber didn’t die,” Arlington responded and was met by groans from the rest of the board and the small group of public attendees, which included Lucille Charlebois-LaPlante whose outspoken support of Cuban medicine was featured on the op/ed page of the Truth last week. 

    Thompson admitted that the board had no encouraging news to report vis a vis recruitment.”We haven’t had a single response to those ads in the medical journals. No graduating medical student or practicing doctor looking for a change of scenery has taken the bait.” 

    The chair went on to say that the Rural Area Medical Committee (RAMC) also has drawn blanks. He accompanied RAMC to three teaching hospitals in order to appeal to interns. He expressed his discouragement.”It is as if we were lepers or worse, simply invisible,too insignificant to consider.”

    Charlebois-LaPlante broke the silence that followed Thompson’s comment,”I think it is time to consider the Cuban alternative. And I will gladly volunteer to followup by inviting a member of the Cuban medical community to visit Germaine and discuss the matter further.”

    After a short debate, the board agreed to give Charlebois-LaPlante permission to act on the board’s behalf in contacting and extending an invitation as she had volunteered to do.

    Emergency preparedness was tabled for the third consecutive meeting. Board members vowed to address it at the next meeting which will be held as usual on the third Tuesday of the month at the Wilbur County Courthouse at 7:00 pm. The public is welcome to all Wilbur County Board of Health meetings. 

     

    Opinion

    Health Situation Demands Drastic Measures

    by Lucy Charlebois-LaPlante

    Germaine and all of Wilbur County have been without a single fulltime physician since Doc Barlow died five years ago. In that time we have had a number of deaths that might hae been prevented with the early intervention of trained medical personnel. Most everyone in Germaine and surrounding Wilbur County are very well aware of this state of affairs.

    I know that the Wilbur County Board of Health has been actively trying to recruit doctors and nurse practitioners. The Wednesday clinic is a result of their hard work. But a clinic one day a week does not adequately serve the medical needs of this community when the nearest doctor for the other six days is an hour’s drive away.

    I have been doing some research and have found a possible answer to our dilemma. It may not sit well with a good many Germainers, but it would mean that a highly trained medical doctor would be here in Germaine seven days a week.

    Now we all may have quarrels with Fidel Castro, but Cuba has doctors to export. doctors who are willing to work in remote rural areas. Face it, Germaine, American doctors just can’t make enough in our sparsely populated bit of paradise to pay off their huge medical school student loans. Even if we could find a way to help them pay their loans we could never get them to commit to remaining here long enough to make it worth the expense. Doctors require a certain amount of glory, its part of the life-over-death God complex they develop. Germaine is too remote for glory.

    Let’s put aside political ideology for the moment. Long enough to at least consider the option of bringing a highly qualified doctor from a small Caribbean Island to our neck of the woods/desert. How many more citizens of Wilbur County will have to die simply because there is no doctor less than an hour away to treat a rattlesnake bite or bring a child’s fever down. I say hire the red, it’s better than dead.

     

    Madam Zorro   No Stars Over Germaine this month

    Sorry, Cynthea is on a well-deserved vacation. She will be gone for the next three months, but will return in January.