Readers are invited to submit letters to The Guardian.
Letters may be e-mailed to guardian@cpa.org.au.
Letters of 300-400 words are preferred.

Letters to the Editor:

I didn't know I could be sold!

I am one of 150 employees of the Home Care Network of 
Chicago's Rush Hospital who were literally sold March 23 to 
Patient Care, a giant for-profit home-care company with 6000 
employees nationwide.

Workers in the homecare network include registered nurses, 
physical and occupational therapists and home health care aides. 
We provide the medically necessary follow-up care after someone 
is hospitalised. The skilled services we provide include physical 
therapy, chemotherapy or cardiac assessments. The goal of this 
Medicare certified service is to prevent re-hospitalisation.

After the sale of the not-for-profit Rush Hospital's home care 
network to the for-profit company was announced, we were shocked 
to learn that the deal included a provision barring us from 
transferring to other positions in the hospital's medical centre. 
The hospital had agreed not to rehire any of us, its soon-to-be-
former employees, for two years, and even then only as a new 
hire.

We had been "sold" to Patient Care!

Rush Hospital nurses have never been unionised, but we are not 
taking this lying down. Talks are underway with local union 
representatives and community organisations.

Elizabeth Peace, R.N

People's Weekly World Communist Party USA

Who does the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, think he 
is? It is not up to him to condemn the freshly elected Prime 
Minister of Spain, Sr Jose Zapatero, for honouring a pre-election 
pledge to withdraw his country's troops from an illegal 
occupation of Iraq. He's got a valid mandate. Quite obviously, 
the Spanish people did not like being lied to and ignored by his 
predecessor.

Nor is it Mr Howard's business, or sensible politics, to publicly 
applaud the air-strike murders of two leaders of the Palestinian 
group Hamas, in rapid succession, either.

Perhaps, at a date to be determined, the Australian people, as 
representatives of a successful multi-cultural society, will show 
Mr Howard that they're no more fond of being lied to and ignored 
than the Spaniards were, and that he shouldn't blatantly favour 
the interests of one section of the Semitic peoples over another.

Dave Diss
Glengowrie, South Australia

As Australians we must be alarmed by our Prime Minister's 
response to any one who disagrees with him on any aspect of the 
Iraq war. Spain's troop withdrawal will, he says, result in "more 
bloodshed in the troubled nation" (The Age 19/4/2004).

The people of Spain may have seen the vanity of war and they have 
voiced their concerns, their opinions and the government has 
respected that. Perhaps the Spanish nation can see what our Prime 
Minister does not want to see: that continued engagement by arms 
and meddling in another sovereign country's affairs will lead to 
more anti-American and "coalition of the willing" hatred and 
bloodshed not only inside Iraq but outside also.

What have we achieved in Iraq up to this point in time? Nothing 
but destruction, displacement, chaos and bloodshed.

Has our Prime Minister found the WMD that he and Mr Bush were 
hoping to find? No. Have we contributed to any reconciliation 
or/and the unification of the Iraqi people? No. To the contrary, 
our presence has increased the resolve of the insurgents to 
resist. Are the Iraqi people safer now than they were under 
Saddam Hussein. Of course not.

Are Australian military and other personnel inside Iraq at risk? 
Yes.

Australia should not wait for casualties to occur. It will be too 
late.

As Australians, let's begin condemning the immoral actions of our 
government that have contributed to destruction and bloodshed."

John Karamanos
Balwyn North, Vic

"Immigration Department figures revealed that nearly 97 
children had tried to harm themselves while in immigration 
detention over the past three years with 88 successful." (The 
Age, Feb 12/04).

Now what did Mr Howard say about not teaching children "values" 
in public schools? What are his and his government's values? Is 
treating innocent, traumatised children as criminals a value to 
be aspired to?

It may be Mr Howard's attitude to children but it is certainly 
not many other people's.

"Disgusted"
Fairfield, NSW