Nurses continue to work, advocate

I write this letter on May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday, to extend my appreciation to the Post-Gazette for its “Thanks to our Nurses” advertising supplement with the May 10 edition.

During the military crisis of the Crimean War, Nightingale observed the needs for hygiene and quantifiable record keeping. Her standards for care are our legacy.

During this pandemic crisis, nurses are confronted with COVID-19 issues such as the lack of PPE and testing resources, and experiencing the loss of too many lives. And, like Nightingale, nurses are addressing these issues with feasible solutions.

Nurses of PA, a grassroots advocacy group of thousands of nurses statewide, is focused on improving bedside care. Based on a survey of over 4,000 people and discussions with nurses, we developed “The Nurse Plan for Pennsylvania’s Recovery.” One major plank of the plan says “nurses must have a seat at every table when recovery plans are being made.”

Like Nightingale, we are educated and trained to be problem solvers in our care settings. We are patient advocates.

In this pandemic, public officials have failed to provide us the tools we need to do our jobs while making decisions about our patients and profession. Not only does this leave us unable to fully advocate for our patients, it removes the passion, expertise and problem-solving ability of nurses from any policy response.

2020 marks Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday. In celebration, Pennsylvania nurses will keep her lamp burning. THERESA CHALICH, R.N.

Squirrel Hill

A scientific plan?

There has been a lot of back and forth recently about Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to reopen parts of the state. Largely, the debate has centered around whether a particular region should remain in lockdown or if restrictions can be lifted, citing that either lives or livelihoods will be lost as justification of the respective positions.

The issue that all Pennsylvania citizens should be united on is the call for information and transparency into how the decision is made to reopen a particular region. The process has been described as “scientific” by the state. However, a plan doesn’t become science-based just because a scientist helped to create it. Real science is done in the open where data, method and results can be shared, scrutinized and peer-reviewed.

There has never been a press release divulging what the economic cost of a lockdown would be per county, what models were used to determine the cost, the assumptions the models make or what data went into them. Additionally, no model has been presented that relates current infection rate, hospital capacity and lockdown policy to number of lives saved in any detail as to be reproducible by those who are curious. We don’t even know what criteria the state uses to compare lives lost to economic losses.

Without adequate information, all arguments are no more than gut feelings and cannot be labeled scientific. If our elected officials have done a thorough job in their decision-making, they should have no issue divulging the “science” that led to the current policy decisions. If our government is going to call itself “scientific,” then it must provide enough information for its citizens to peer review and properly evaluate its policies. ROBERT KEELAN

Oakmont

Election system

I am writing to speak out against the mail-in ballot as proposed by our county government. This system will have many errors in it and is not 100% clear of possible fraud.

When was the last time the county elections board purged the system of ineligible voters? Who will be responsible for overseeing the count of ballots? Will all the ballots received be valid and ensure a correct count for each candidate?

I say we can maintain the system of polling places and ensure the health and safety of the voting public. There can be a requirement to social distance at the polling place and also voters must wear a mask to enter as they do now to enter any other public place. The county has spent thousands of tax dollars to get new voting machines and it would be a further waste not to use these machines and use mail-in ballots instead.

Another problem is getting the ballots to the correct district and ensuring that they are sent to an eligible voter. This mail-in ballot system is another example of too much government in our lives and is socialistic in nature. If you are able, I would urge you to go to your polling place to vote and forget the mail-in ballot concept. Do not allow big government to take over yet another thing and further take away your rights as set forth in the Constitution. KARL AUFMAN

McCandless