Jim's Quality of Life OnLine

(NB: This post was written by Jim Vickers-Willis a few days before his passing on December 30th 2008)

Great philosopher and psychologist Dr Francis Macnab, the Minister of St Michaels Church, Collins Street, and head of the Cairmillar Institute, urges church leaders to make their religion more relevant to our 21s' century times - "searching for good replacing dogma".

Can one imagine that God is in favour of multi millions of people starving?

Should our religious leaders have a rethink? Should the world's religions be supporting comprehensive sex education, contraception and abortion? At present the world has 6.5 billion people, with millions starving and lacking adequate water. We also have climate change problems and the population predicted to increase very rapidly.

Are religious leaders simply hanging onto useless dogma and hiding behind the word "moral"? Is there anything moral about deliberately promoting a situation where, in the not too far distant future, multi multi millions of people may be engaged in wars, fighting one another for water and food?

Good on you Dr Macnab.

Yours Faithfully

Jim Vickers-Willis
CEO - Quality Of Life Online
Visit Jim’s web site at www.vickers-willis.com

This blog post was written by Jim two weeks prior to his passing on December 30th.

It was way back in May 1954 and the radio broadcast of the Queen's visit was interspersed with the broadcast of square dancing from Centennial Hall where I was calling the dancing for some hundreds of square dancers. The polio was starting to show; my voice was starting to crack as I sang the last number "Somebody Stole My Girl".

Next day in the Reporters' Room at The Advertiser newspaper, as I wrote my weekly square dance column I found that the first finger on my right hand would not press the typewriter keys. In the afternoon I was flown back to Melbourne - and straight into Fairfield Hospital and the iron lung.

The next day I saw the main story on the front page of The Sun newspaper in big print "Vickers-Willis Polio Suspect."

Blimey!

Now here I am writing about having polio - 54 years down the track at a place called VASS where I am spending a week of respite while my wife has a much needed holiday. VASS stands for Ventilator Accommodation Support Service. It also means Clarendon House 335 Clarendon Street Thornbury. It is a place all Victorians can be proud of.

VASS provides short term (respite) accommodation and long term accommodation for people with breathing problems often caused by polio, motor neurone disease and muscular dystrophy. One of the problems is a thing called post polio syndrome which means that the polio problem tends to return in later life.

You can't do much in life if you can't breathe, and these people at Clarendon House are doing a really magnificent job, making life as comfortable and secure as possible for the patients.
Staff here tell me that at present that there are more than 600 people in Victoria requiring respiratory support. I could imagine what a shambles it would cause in our hospitals if these people had to go to hospital to have their special needs met. As it is, most of them are able to have their needs met at home. The Department of Human Resources underwrites the Victorian Respiratory Support Service headed up by Ms Anne Duncan. This service provides ventilator machines to people in their own homes - so that they can stay at home instead of being in hospital. These machines are provided free of charge and are serviced without charge - most efficiently by all accounts. Many of the ventilator users only need their ventilators at night - so that they can get a good night's sleep, and go about life normally without a ventilator. But some patients need a ventilator day and night.

At Clarendon House you see all stages - from those who use the ventilator only at night to June Middleton the world famous iron lung patient who has been in the iron lung continuously for the past 59 years. June's cheerful spirit is an inspiration to all. This week Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, who will be age 100 on February the 8th, pulled out some plants, at her place on Cruden Farm, and sent them across to June Middleton - where they were planted in June's garden outside her window. She can see the plants from her iron lung.

It's not much fun having polio, but it would be much worse without this support. Clarendon House sometimes is the end of the road. Not everyone can have a wife or a husband or members of their family to look after them so that they can remain in their home until they die. Although that is what we all hope for, it's not always the way it works out. It's always great to see the staff of Clarendon House providing friendship and comfort and making the best end of life experience possible for these people who are suffering disabilities, which can affect any one of us in the community.

So often we hear complaints about Government inadequacy, but, having had polio for 54 years, I can attest to the great Government support and services - a credit to the Department of Human Resources, the Victorian Respiratory Services, Yooralla, amongst others - providing long term caring for these polio and similar victims.

Where did I get my title for this article?

In Western Australia my wife and a carer called Rosy were helping me to shower - when I slipped. As they saved me, I said "I have just thought of the title for my article about polio -"In the shower with two girls - and all that!". Much laughter. The next day a small present arrived from carer Rosy. The card said: "From the other girl in the shower!"

Yours faithfully,

Jim Vickers-Willis
Author of "The Magic of Life". (Sid Harta Publishers)

This comment was written by Jim on 24 December 2008 – 6 days prior to his passing.

The twinkling "diamond" lights on the tree outside my home in Brighton are solar powered.

The solar panel for these lights is about the size of two match boxes and sits on the fence facing the sun. When it is a sunny day, the lights will shine at night for about 8 hours. If it is a cloudy day, they may only shine for about 2 hours.

The string of lights is light sensitive. It automatically turns on the lights at dusk and turns them off again automatically at sunrise.

The lights require no electrical connection and appear to come to no harm out in the weather.

In these days of climate change electricity restrictions, is this the way many of our Christmas night displays should be going?

Cheers,

Jim Vickers-Willis
Visit Jim's website at www.vickers-willis.com

We can have valuable employment growth in meeting the needs of climate change - if our political leaders will just start making the right decisions.

The all-electric car produced by Ross Blade, at Blade Electrical Vehicles in Castlemaine, is ready to be produced in great numbers. 18 have been sold locally and one man I have spoken to, Allan Gray, the Editor of Earth Garden magazine, tells me he drives his Electron (yes that's the name) into his garage every night, plugs it into the wall socket and charges it up off solar panels on the roof of his garage.

Already Blade Electric Engines is receiving overseas orders - one quite substantial. Ross Blade said yesterday; "we have a high class product. We need - and I believe deserve - every possible help from our Government. After all, Australia can be a leader in electric cars which are badly needed. For Australia, it has the potential of an employment bonanza."

Isn't this an area where we need the best possible Government support - particularly financial support to aid research and development and marketing - to bring the cost of electric cars down below those of the standard petrol vehicle.

Yours faithfully,



Jim Vickers-Willis
CEO

You are invited to visit our web site at:
www.vickers-willis.com

When are we going to get real value for the almost half a billion dollars we spend per annum keeping prisoners in jail in Victoria?

We need an incentive Education System - a system designed to provide the best education facilities, aimed particularly at giving the prisoners skills which will help them obtain future employment. Combined with this an incentive that a prisoner who passes various exams or acquires certain skills, will gain remission of part of his sentence by his hard work. About half of the prisoners have backgrounds of multiple and related serious disadvantage, including unemployment and homelessness.

If we set up the right system, it will not be long before employers are looking for "early release men" - knowing that they are going to get an employee who has been working hard to gain special employment skills.

These prisoners need our support and help to help them become useful citizens - instead of just re-offending and going back into jail which is the case so often today.

Get them educated and get them out as quick as possible.

Best Wishes,

Jim Vickers-Willis

You are invited to visit our web site at:
www.vickers-willis.com