
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503060063
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                                LENGTH: Short

SCHOOLS SEEK BIDS FOR PRIVATE NURSES

Nurses who give medicine to students and care for children who get sick at school say the quality of school clinics would decline if a private company takes over.

School officials will ask firms to submit bids this spring detailing how much they would charge to provide health care at the schools. Currently, 40 registered nurses and 12 nurse's aides work in the schools as city employees.

School officials said they just want to save money, and they sought to reassure parents that students wouldn't suffer.

``We're not going to accept any agency that cannot provide us top-quality care,'' spokeswoman Rosalynne D. Whitaker-Heck said at a meeting Tuesday in which the nurses first heard they may lose their jobs.

The nurses say if school officials hire a private company, less-experienced nurse's aides will replace existing registered nurses because the school district could not afford registered nurses from a private company. Starting pay for registered nurses who work at Newport News schools is $18,000 a year - about $8,000 less than their peers who work at hospitals and other private health-care businesses.

The school nurses also note that in Virginia, nurse's aides may not administer medicines, a common job for school nurses.

by CNB