By Eleven experts took part in Dallas Morning News’ discussion on health care, including Rossia Avery, a registered nurse and chairwoman of the Dallas-Fort Worth National Nurses Organizing Committee. Each panelist expressed their personal views via email on key health care questions (for answers on ‘nursing shortage’ skip down to #10):
1. Single-payer vs. market-based system
2. Making insurance affordable
4. Chances for reform this year
8. Recruiting doctors to general practice
9. Requiring business to provide coverage
10. Addressing the nurses shortage
11. Encouraging preventive care
AVERY: The only genuine way to improve the nursing shortage is to improve safety conditions in hospitals to the point where registered nurses feel they can safely practice their profession. The result is that nearly half of all registered nurses don’t work in critical-care settings – they work in offices or at home, or they just don’t work. Texas hospitals demonstrate the problem. It is not uncommon to hear about a registered nurse being assigned 15 patients. That’s not physically possible, and it deprives the patients of necessary nursing care while saddling the nurse with dread and worry over the patient she or he couldn’t get to…
Visit DallasNews.com to read Avery’s full answers in the article, “Experts Share Views on Health Care Issues.”
Do you agree with Avery’s views? What’s your take on how to fix America’s health care system? Tell us at he***@me*********.com.
