ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 23, 1996 TAG: 9611250004
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
ELIZABETH STROTHER'S Nov. 17 column (``In the new health-care era, how do hospital patients fare?'') brought many of the concerns I have about the ``inpatient delivery-care model'' to light. Beyond the obvious problems of having registered nurses accountable for the quality of work of unlicensed staff, there is a much more grievous concern. That is, having someone who is minimally trained providing ``patient care activities'' such as inserting catheters, changing dressings, etc.
Someone who has four to six weeks of training, as Strother said in her column, cannot possibly have the knowledge, insight or professionalism that years of nursing training instills. The ``clinical partners'' may know the mechanics of the procedure, but is that enough? Nursing is more than the mere completion of a procedure, and nursing care is more than what a minimally trained, read lower-wage, substitute can provide.
Since nurses are the care givers seen most often by a patient during a hospital stay, they are relied upon to use their judgment and knowledge with respect to every patient and every circumstance. I fear that weeks of training will not provide the clinical partner with the requisite knowledge to ensure adequate care for the patient. I also fear that this model will, by its very design, remove the registered nurse from constant contact with the patient, and input from the patient, through increased patient loads and administrative/supervisory responsibilities - again affecting the level of patient care.
As a practical matter, how comfortable should I feel if the person checking vital signs or inserting needles to start intravenous liquids, medications or catheters for my son has less training than the person who cuts his hair? Unlicensed staff in a health-care environment is a risky proposition. Unfortunately, the risk is passed to the patient.
LYNDA RIDDLEBARGER SCOTT
VINTON
City businesses invite trouble
ROANOKE is so desperate to become a big metropolis that we have given up our values.
We now have drug pushers following all the businesses that are moving in from different locales. We now have two sleaze bars - Girls, Girls, Girls on Franklin Road and Hooters on Williamson Road. We are seeing carjackings, and soon there will be drive-by shootings.
I guess we should be real proud of what we have accomplished so far.
CAROLE BREEDLOVE
ROANOKE
Tech has let standards fall
RANDY KING, staff writer for The Roanoke Times, did a pretty good public-relations piece for Virginia Tech in the Nov. 11 sports section (``Va. Tech plays it cool in the cold''). However, one quote revealed the truth. Hokie quarterback Jim Druckenmiller said, ``The skeptics out there are kind of hard to please. But as long as we keep winning, there's not much they can say bad about us.''
Is this what the head coach and Tech administration pumped into the football team after indictments (including two felonies) came down recently on several members of the football team?
It's obvious Tech has let the standard down. This once-proud academic institution has become a haven for thugs in its desire to become a farm team for the National Football League and to earn a few dollars in bowl games.
The Tech Board of Visitors should clean house from top to bottom, and restore the reputation of this once-great institution. It will require more than a few public-relations articles in the local press. The change required is probably a new administration.
Kathy Loan, another staff writer, continued the damage-control campaign for Tech in her Nov. 12 news article (``Board backs tough stance''). Tough stance? Is making a bunch of thugs miss one football game a tough stance?
President Paul Torgersen should be fired for allowing a university climate where thugs are recruited and protected, and for his very wimpy response to this shameful marring of Tech's reputation.
RON CROCKER
ROANOKE
Not enough tribute for our veterans
IN RESPONSE to your Nov. 11 Veterans Day news article, ``Father Time looms as VFW's deadliest foe'':
As a disabled veteran, I took that article as a slap in the face. I am wheelchair-bound due to injuries I received while in active service in the U.S. Army in the 1970s where I served as a medical specialist. I am proud to be a veteran, proud of my country, and proud of Old Glory and the many freedoms that it represents.
I am not responding to the article for myself, but for all who served - not forgetting those who paid the ultimate sacrifice - their lives. I salute all and remember all as well.
When seeing the heavy bold headline, ``Army scandal deepens,'' and below that article in much smaller print, ``Remembering our veterans,'' with a photograph of some of our veterans holding our flag that many gave their life for, I felt it was slapping the faces of all veterans.
I understand that a few bad apples in a basket can ruin them all. There should have been much more said to sincerely display a true salute to the veterans who served our ``One nation under God'' and Old Glory.
TONY D. CONNER
SHAWSVILLE
LENGTH: Medium: 100 linesby CNB