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Show Nurse Shortage Dear Editor: I seem to have created an interest as a result of my last letter about the nurse shortage. This pleases me very much to find that the people in the community do care about quality medical care. Some people do not understand the problem of the nurses. The Uintah County Hospital not only has a shortage of nurses on the floor, but in the operating room as well. In surgery there is a shortage of RNs and LPNs. I know of two full time LPNs and saw a couple of other LPNs that work other areas, but help in surgery when needed. The two surgical LPNs, that assisted with my mother's surgery arrived at 6 a.m. and left a little before 6 p.m.. this I witnessed. One of the ladies stopped to let us know how well mother had done. During the conversation, she commented com-mented they put in 16 to 18 hours over a 24 hour period because of not enough nurses. I ask the community if they would assist like these ladys do for $4, $5, or $6 an hour? That is dedication in my book and I publicly thank them for doing their thankless job. ; The RNs, LPNs, aides and maintenance people also, have a thankless job. There are two nurses stations in our hew hospital. While my mother was there, almost all the beds were filled. Only one nursing station was in operation, opera-tion, because of not enough nurses. I have checked and we need at least twelve full time RNs to staff the hospital. hos-pital. Yes, we have RNs in our community com-munity to make up this staff, but they do not want to work for the hospital for various reason: 1) lack of organization and communication; 2) not enough pay; 3) burned out or they just don't want to work. The nurses and aides at the hospital care about the hospital and the patients. pa-tients. My mother felt they did a super job taking care of her. When she left everyone came by to say good-by and good luck to her. I know these people care. Thank you all! The purpose of this letter is to get the people of the community to think and act. If the three problems stated above are our major problem, let's demand action to improve the working condition, condi-tion, pay more if needed, and get more nurses. We have good nurses now at the hospital. We need to go out and get more that are specialized in various fields and nurses that want to work. Let's not brow beat the ones who won't or don't want to come back. Again I state to the community, we have the hospital, excellent doctors and intend to get more, we have half enough good nurses. Let's go and get some help for these people. We are striving for and will have the finest facility between Salt Lake City and Denver. We will have as fine as care as you can find in either of these two cities. Let us all rise up and demand this, not only for us, but for our children and granchildren. Question: Why do five Registered Nurses commute to the Roosevelt Hospital? Thank you ' JoANN HARDY |