ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 TAG: 9701280037
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
Crunch time for mental patients
IN REFERENCE to Beth Macy's Jan. 16 column (``Patients are not widgets'') regarding Dr. Enrique Perez, a psychiatrist who recently resigned from Lewis-Gale Clinic due to the pressure placed on psychiatrists by managed-care providers to reduce patient time to 10 or 15 minutes:
One can only admire Perez, obviously a caring doctor. No doubt, his departure will be Roanoke's loss and Maine's gain. It is somewhat frightening, though understandable, that other psychiatrists are intimidated by insurance companies, and are fearful of speaking out due to the danger of being dropped by them. If the companies were concerned with the patients, they would realize that shortened sessions can only prolong the healing process.
For 23 years, I was employed as admitting officer-head clerk at the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, which at the time was our country's largest mental hospital. I developed a deep compassion for the patients, most of whom were quite ill. In my wildest imagination, I cannot visualize how 10- or 15-minute sessions could be of any value.
Two traumas during my 68 years prompted me to seek professional counseling. Thank God, my doctor was extremely dedicated, and helped me through with sessions of 30 minutes to occasionally 1 hour. In my opinion, the most valuable part of professional counseling is that you can really open up to a professional with things you may not wish to relate to a friend or relative.
Where is the justice of limiting patients who are mentally or emotionally ill to 10 to 15 minutes? Are insurance companies going to begin limiting those who are physically ill to half an operation?
We are not robots; we are human beings with our own individual needs. There are times when the public needs to get involved. This, I believe, is one of them.
MARY ELIZABETH SKIPPER
ROANOKE
Jackson, Lee were not racists
I READ in astonishment and disappointment the comments of Paul Gillis, president of Virginia Chapter, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Jan. 21 Associated Press news article, ``Lee-Jackson-King Day stirs up controversy among some'').
Being a native Virginian, I have always maintained a sense of pride and humility toward the heritage and history of Virginia. I am troubled by his callous remarks referring to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as ``treacherous Confederate generals.''
I do agree with Gillis on one point, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man with a vision of integration, equality, coexistence and peace. I think it is symbolic that we, as a human race, can accept the celebration of great men from different times.
Additionally, if Gillis will do proper research, he will learn that Lee and Jackson were not slaveowners or racists. In fact, there is a black church that has a stained-glass window dedicated to Jackson. The reason for this tribute is the fact that Jackson, prior to the Civil War, defied Virginia law and taught Sunday school to blacks. Believe it or not.
I am sure King and Jackson had a similar respect for their God and fellow men, and maybe there is a significance in their birthdays being celebrated together. I have no problem honoring both men.
LEN HALE
GOODVIEW
Abortion ban won't boost the economy
LET ME see if I understand correctly. According to the astonishing mind of John LeDoux (Jan. 18 letter to the editor, ``Wanted: a debate on the economic impact of abortion''), we as a society should ban abortions so that our country would be populated by an additional 40 million unwanted people who would pay taxes. This would keep his Social Security benefit solvent.
That is assuming, of course, that these unwanted babies somehow miraculously become adults who will contribute to society rather than draw from it.
Furthermore, it should be our goal as a species to populate the planet at the most rapid rate possible because it is good for the economy? What economics course has this guy taken?
JANE L. ABRAHAM
BLACKSBURG
Teachers earn public's respect
THIS IS but one more letter to the editor in reply to the Jan. 8 missive from Jeffrey T. Morris (``Be thankful for any salary raise'') concerning the sloth of our public schoolteachers. Since I felt exactly as he does at one time, I wanted to add my voice to the criticism his letter has generated.
While my children were in a local school system, I could have written that letter. (I will be eternally grateful that I didn't exercise my inalienable right to show my rear end at that time.) I recently was lucky enough to marry a teacher and am proud to be able to report that my tax dollars are indeed hard at work.
A typical school day for my wife begins about 30 minutes before school begins so that she can set out materials for the morning's work. She is allowed about 25 minutes for her lunch on four days. On one day, she has to supervise her children's lunch and rarely gets more than 20 minutes for her own. After the children go home, she has to attend endless meetings designed to help Morris' children learn more effectively.
When she arrives home, my wife still has papers to grade, parents to call and lesson plans to prepare. By the way, she provides additional material for children who have special needs. (She shops for these materials and often pays for them at her or my expense.)
Morris should also know that teachers have contracts that require them to work a set number of days per year. They do not get overtime pay for the 60 to 80 hours put in each week to see that his children go to school in a system that has consistently outperformed the national average.
ALEXANDER G. MAXWELL JR.
ROANOKE
Lawbreakers must pay the price
REGARDING Cynthia J. Hoskins' Jan. 20 letter to the editor (``System is biased against black males'') about an unfair sentence bestowed on a young black male:
It isn't a question of black or white, but a question of right or wrong. If Hos-kins' friend had not been in possession of drugs in the first place, he never would have been sentenced.
There is a reason why we have rules and laws - and justice will be served on those who do not obey. Unfortunately, it appears that her friend chose the wrong path.
WANDA WINTERS
ROANOKE
Interstates aren't for joy rides
IN RESPONSE to J.L. Vannoy's Dec. 29 letter to the editor (``Build special roads for trucks only'') suggesting that there be separate roads for trucks because of ``too much truck traffic'':
It has taken me several weeks to respond because I've been out on the highways creating unnecessary clutter, mischief and mayhem as a professional truck driver. I wish all trucks would shut down for just a week to let people like Vannoy see the importance of our jobs.
The interstate highway system was designed for quick interstate commerce, not joy riding and going to see what there is to eat at McDonald's.
Instead of building new roads just for trucks, how about full-time automobile drivers' using the back roads that already exist? This would save money and frustration.
To correct some of his other statements:
Trucking companies pay more than their fair share in road-use taxes.
Seventy-five percent of all multivehicle and single-vehicle accidents are the automobile driver's fault.
In using trains for delivery, Vannoy would soon be complaining about slow service and all the smaller trucks, needed to deliver from the train stations to the stores, cluttering up city traffic. The real solution to the problem on the highways is mutual respect and courtesy between truck and automobile drivers.
BRIAN E. SCOTT
ROANOKE
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