Editor, The News:There has been a lot of coverage recently on television about our health care system, or lack of. We have been unfortunate to personally witness some of the short-falls during the past seven weeks at Ridge Meadows Hospital as we were visiting a dear friend of ours.Almost daily the common phrase we heard to just about every request we made on his behalf was “we are short staffed,” which meant patients were not getting the care they deserved, the physiotherapy they needed to improve quickly or the attention when they wanted something. It is not fair to the staff, and is even less fair to the patients.At one point, our friend was unable to get out of bed into a chair for three days in succession because of either a lack of necessary equipment or insufficient staff to help him. One evening his nurse informed us she was working a 16-hour shift that day because, otherwise, there would be only two nurses on duty. Our government is all too ready to give millions away to help other countries when our own people are in such dire need of help. It is always the sick or the elderly who pay the biggest price. These people are taxpayers and have more than paid their dues to society. They deserve so much more. Is it too much to ask that we take care of our own first? It is not until you see these things first-hand that you realize how bad our health care system is. In fact, it is not breaking down – it is already broken down.Christine and Ron PalmerMaple Ridge