More to nurses' story than union and salary
I am writing in response to the story by Lester Chang on the negotiations between Professional Resource for Nurses and El Camino Hospital.
As a nurse at another Bay Area hospital, I am pleased that talks have resumed. However, I am concerned that coverage of nursing is consistently framed around labor issues. There is more to the nursing profession than unions, contracts, pay, etc.
Most hospital nurses are represented by some sort of labor union, but that is not all that we are about. Nurses monitor patients before, during and after all the high-tech hospital procedures. We are present with patients and families to provide support and dignity, both at the beginning and at the end of life. Staffing cuts have made it difficult to perform these functions as fully as they should be performed, yet we continue to be there for the patient.
Nurses also contribute much to education and research that promotes better patient care, yet these aspects are rarely covered by the media.
The corporatization of health care has produced changes in staffing and skill mix in hospitals, which affects the quality of care that patients receive. The concerns of nurses at El Camino and across the country involve more than labor and contract issues. The changes affecting nursing are important health-care issues, and they need to be given coverage from that perspective.
Colleen O'Leary-Kelley
Sunnyvale
The liberal mess we're in
We have had decades of liberal school controls at huge cost. Result? California is dead last in recent national reading tests. Trillions of dollars have been poured into the welfare state. Result? Of the welfare dollar, 65 cents go to the liberal bureaucracy and only 35 cents to the poor. The poor are still with us, millions have suffered, families have been destroyed, crime is rampant, public housing is in shambles, drug use is soaring, teenage pregnancy is soaring, and high school seniors can't read their diplomas, yet liberals claim they care!
All of the above was done on your watch, my liberal friends. So, should we give you more control and more tax money to continue the same "caring"? I vote NO. We will have a lot fewer problems when liberalism finally dies, folks. And it will.
R. Bowlby
Cupertino
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, March 19, 1997.
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