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Covenant Health Edmonton General issues $287.00 smoking violation ticket

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Covenant Health issued a $287.00, smoking violationticket to a wheel chair dependent resident, at the GeneralHospital Long Term Care Centre ( he is not a senior).
Supposedly, the General hospital care centre is his home. He has a difficult life style but it is not a lifestyle of his choice, he suffers from multiple sclerosis.
At 2:00 PM ,we had to attend at the Provincial CriminalCourt Counter, then up to Ct. Rm. # 266, criminal court.
After various criminal matters had been heard, Mr. C.W. wascalled to come before the court.He wheeled forward & we went with him.
He had elected to plead not guilty and have a trial.
The whole matter appeared ludicrous and most
troubling.
The Honourable Madame Justice, before whom we
appeared, made a brief statement which we wereunable to hear and then said that the ticket was being
withdrawn.
He was grateful, so were we.

There are issues at the General LTC Centre, in thatthe smoking areas are not well defined.
We had been told that the seating area, to the rightof the front door was not allowed to be used by thesevulnerable residents.
However when we met with a senior Security Officeron Wednesday, he told us that residents were allowedto smoke there.
Furthermore, some residents are not strong enough towheel their manual wheel chairs up to the city sidewalk where allegedly they are allowed to smoke.
Perhaps it would be more compassionate and christian,
to aid the residents and push them up the incline to thesmoking area, rather than disciplining them with a heavy fine.
A fine that that can only be dealt with at the court house – in criminal court.