Short supply of nurses
Regarding “Top health problem: doctor shortage” (Open Forum, Sept. 18): Solutions to this shortage already exist. Nurse practitioners have served clients and families in rural areas, providing primary and specialty health care, and have fulfilled the needs of these clients with exemplary service, well documented in research on patient satisfaction. Public health nurses, employed by county public health departments, meet the needs of rural clients — assessing for and providing them health care, food, community resources, etc., and educating in self-care. What is really needed is more nurses.
Lisa Frost, Oakland
Intentional HIV infection
Regarding “City set record for fewest new HIV cases in ’16” (Sept. 16): Your recent article on the reduction in HIV infections in San Francisco was good news. It’s too bad that the facts presented in the article seem to have been ignored by our legislators in Sacramento, who recently passed a bill to make knowingly infecting someone with HIV a simple misdemeanor. I wonder if they considered the mental health, housing and financial needs in addition to primary health care issues that your article mentions for long-term HIV survivors. Or why the infection rates for women haven’t dropped (i.e. men are lying about their status).
Did Sacramento consider who is going to pay the $500,000 average cost of HIV care over the lifetime of victims intentionally infected with HIV? What about the increased complications, risk and cost for pregnancy and childbirth for HIV-infected mothers? Do they know that drugresistant HIV (i.e. no effective treatment options) is on the rise? HIV isn’t like any other communicable disease, and living with HIV is still a huge deal. Putting intentionally infecting someone with an incurable, debilitating disease on the same level as shoplifting is morally wrong. Robert Gleeson, Sonoma
Alarming war games
Regarding “Military might” (News of the Day, Sept. 19): It’s alarming to read that Russia is firing a “state-of-the-art” cruise missile as part of “war games” with Belarus. With a Vladimir Putin admirer now in the White House, will this Moscow autocrat seek to annex other territories to Mother Russia, like part of Crimea? Before Putin’s unexplained activities, there was already international concern about North Korea test-launching nuclear-style missiles, some of which could reach the U.S. mainland. Will our impulsive 45th president reach out to our allies and use diplomacy to defuse these provocations, or take this country to the brink of World War III? Lillian Hermann, San Francisco
Homeless priority
May I suggest that some of the areas beneath San Francisco freeways being considered for greening be turned into decent, safe living spaces for the homeless, such as tiny homes and unused shipping containers that can be readily modified in healthy, ecological ways. How it’s done and how it’s monitored may be the most complicated aspects, but in my mind, housing the homeless is a priority.
Celia Menczel, Walnut Creek