Daily Bulletin

For health, call 888-4096

A new health services phone number introduced this summer eliminates delays by allowing callers to access a menu of options, including leaving a voice-mail message to cancel an appointment.

The new number, ext. 4096 from on campus or 888-4096 from off-campus phones, is actually the old appointment line, and was the most publicized of the many health services numbers, explains health services accounts manager Chris Strome.

By consolidating the many options under one number, callers can now phone ext. 4096 to book or cancel appointments, to obtain test results or a referral to a doctor, find out about clinic hours, reach the business or health insurance offices, connect to other health services extensions, or speak to a nurse or receptionist.

The new number serves two functions, says Strome, taking some pressure off the front-line people answering the phones at health services, and filtering people through the system more expediently.

"In the past, students would try to cancel an appointment and be unable to get through, especially on a Monday morning."

The initial response to the new number has been positive. "People seem to like being able to get where they want to go themselves, without going on hold. And it frees up receptionists to deal with booking appointments."

The people with the least free time

Zuzanek is co-editor of the latest edition of the journal Loisir et Société/Society and Leisure, published by Presses de l'Université du Québec. This special issue deals with stress and "time pressures" in life at the end of the 20th century.

"The tenor of the discussions in the '90s has clearly shifted from the promise of leisure to the problem of time," Zuzanek reports. "Yet judging by the data on the length of the workweek and the amounts of free time available to people living in most industrial societies, the work week remains unchanged or has even decreased slightly, and the amounts of free time have increased, though possibly at a slower rate than before.

"However, the majority of people seem to live under the impression that they have less time and that their daily lives are more rushed today than ever before. Approximately half of Americans and Canadians report they are experiencing high or moderate levels of stress, and this is apparently true in other countries as well."

More than half the workers in Finland feel rushed at their jobs and an additional 26 per cent feel rushed at least once a week. Similar trends for Germany and other European countries are reported in the journal. Russian studies have shown that in certain parts of that country men still work over 76 hours a week and women, over 87 hours -- leaving very little time for leisure.

"In Canada, divorcees and employed parents with small children report inordinately high combined loads of paid and unpaid work, as well as high levels of perceived time pressure and personal stress," says Zuzanek.

Canadian government statistics show that while the average length of the work week did not change much from 1976 to 1995, the proportion of those in the labour force working long hours (41 hours a week or more) and the proportion of those working short hours (35 hours a week or less) increased -- the two ends of the workload spectrum rose at the expense of the middle.

Women who are both working and raising families are more apt to report high levels of stress, and so are separated and divorced parents. In Canada, 84.2 per cent of employed women aged 25 to 44 and with at least one child under the age of five at home, reported they feel more rushed than they did five years ago (but only 62.5 per cent of fathers in the same age bracket and parental situation feel that way).

"With growing number of women entering the labour force, conflicts between work and family roles are increasingly recognized as a source of considerable strain and distress and this is particularly so for employed mothers," Zuzanek reports. "People with small children, people who are divorced or separated, and people who are widowed experience the greatest 'life-cycle squeeze'."

He notes that "A review of four major U.S. and Canadian health surveys shows a positive association between physical activity, mental health and well-being, though one further U.S. study indicated physically active leisure worked best for persons who were retired; so exercise seems not to be as effective for those still on the job."

He says a 1994 study, the Canadian National Population Health Survey with more than 17,500 respondents across the country, found that divorced and separated persons have higher levels of chronic stress than any other group. "Parents of small children who are not divorced or separated tend to have only moderate levels of stress in their lives. Retired persons clearly experience the lowest stress levels of all."

Other news on a summer day

People aged 70 and older are wanted as subjects for a study of "aging and mobility disability" in UW's kinesiology department. Headed by Aftab Patla, the study is looking at "What does it take for an individual to be independently mobile within a community?" and classifying environmental factors such as minimum walking distances, terrain characteristics and traffic levels. Participants in the study will be interviewed by phone and asked to fill out questionnaires, then "observed and videotaped while grocery shopping, visiting a medical professional, and a recreational activity of their choice . . . once in the summer and once in the winter". Eva Niechwiej can provide more information to potential research subjects -- phone ext. 6371 or e-mail eniechwi@nclab.

The University of Toronto morgue murder story is over, 15 months after the body of technician Bob Ivens was found in a room where cadavers were kept in U of T's Medical Sciences Building. The same day, co-worker Steve Toussaint disappeared, and someone set fire to three churches, including one of which Toussaint was treasurer. Police looked for Toussaint in vain until last week, when his body, reduced to a skeleton, was found in a heavily overgrown area of the Scarborough Bluffs. "Detectives believe Ivens was bludgeoned to death," the Star said Friday, "after he complained to his supervisor that Toussaint was constantly drunk on the job and was not doing his share of their gruelling work." It is not clear how Toussaint died.

The Midnight Sun V solar car team are now definite about their plans to take the car to Australia this fall. "On October 17," says their latest newsletter, "the team will commence its race against 41 other teams from 11 countries in the World Solar Challenge 1999. The WSC is a race across Australia cutting the continent in half, beginning in Darwin on the North coast and finishing in Adelaide on the Southern coast. . . . The team is currently hard at work making logistics plans for shipping the car and the team to Australia and back." They finished 10th out of 29 teams in Sunrayce '99 in the southern United States last month.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
| Friday's Bulletin
Copyright © 1999 University of Waterloo