Dear Editor,
>
> I am a nurse who has just completed volunteer
> working approximately 120 hours as the clinic director in a
> Hurricane Gustav evacuation shelter in Shreveport, Louisiana
> over the last 7 days. I would love to see someone look at
> the evacuee situation from a new perspective. Local and
> national news channels have covered the evacuation and
> "horrible" conditions the evacuees had to endure
> during Hurricane Gustav.
>
> True - some things were not optimal for the
> evacuation and the shelters need some modification.
>
> At any point, does anyone address the
> responsibility (or irresponsibility) of the evacuees?
>
> Does it seem wrong that one would remember
> their cell phone, charger, cigarettes and lighter but forget
> their child's insulin?
>
> Is something amiss when an evacuee gets off the
> bus, walks immediately to the medical area, and requests
> immediate free refills on all medicines for which they
> cannot provide a prescription or current bottle (most of
> which are narcotics)?
>
> Isn't the system flawed when an evacuee
> says they cannot afford a $3 copay for a refill that will be
> delivered to them in the shelter yet they can take a
> city-provided bus to Wal-mart, buy 5 bottles of Vodka, and
> return to consume them secretly in the shelter?
>
> Is it fair to stop performing luggage checks on
> incoming evacuees so as not to delay the registration
> process but endanger the volunteer staff and other persons
> with the very realistic truth of drugs, alcohol and weapons
> being brought into the shelter?
>
> Am I less than compassionate when it frustrates
> me to scrub emesis from the floor near a nauseated child
> while his mother lies nearby, watching me work 26 hours
> straight, not even raising her head from the pillow to
> comfort her own son?
>
> Why does it insense me to hear a man say
> "I ain't goin' home 'til I get my FEMA
> check" when I would love to just go home and see my
> daughters who I have only seen 3 times this week?
>
> Is the system flawed when the privately insured
> patient must find a way to get to the pharmacy, fill his
> prescription and pay his copay while the FEMA declaration
> allows the uninsured person to acquire free medications
> under the disaster rules?
>
> Does it seem odd that the nurse volunteering at
> the shelter is paying for childcare while the evacuee sits
> on a cot during the day as the shelter provides a
> "daycare"?
>
> Have government entitlements created this
> mentality and am I facilitating it with my work?
>
> Will I be a bad person, merciless nurse or poor
> Christian if I hesitate to work at the next shelter because
> I have worked for 7 days being called every curse word
> imaginable, feeling threatened and fearing for my personal
> safety in the shelter?
>
> Exhausted and battered,
>
> Sherri Hagerhjelm, RN
After reading the article about the mother's letter to the governor regarding the children removed from the polygamous sect's ranch in West Texas....
I am baffled after reading this part of the letter included in the article
"You would be appalled," the letter said. "Many of our children have become sick as a result of the conditions they have been placed in. Some have even had to be taken to the hospital. Our innocent children are continually being questioned on things they know nothing about. The physical examinations were horrifying to the children. The exposure to these conditions is traumatizing them."
Lets talk about traumatizing them, now. How could them going through the examinations and questionings be any more traumatizing then their own mothers and fathers, forcing them to marry much other men and forcing them to participate in sexual activity once married at such young ages?? This totally blows my mind!! I guess in the minds of the people born and raised there and taught to believe that it's okay to live the way much of those people have, that it would not be traumatizing “in their minds”. But I just can't imagine, them being examined or questioned by the state, being any more traumatizing than being forced to marry a 50 year old man and have sex with him at the age of 10 years old in some of these girls cases....
I am so confused...this is just sickening to me…
I have been looking into placing my daughter in preschool this August. Since her birthday is in late September, she will not be able to start school until she is 6 years old. So, my intentions were to place her in preschool the year before she goes to kindergarten (which would be August 2008). This is my first and only child as of right now; so, I called the Crandall ISD, to find out how I would go about enrolling my child to attend ½ day pre-k classes at the elementary school. Much to my surprise, I was informed that preschool eligibility was based on the income of the parent?? Being that I make over $25,327.00 a year my child is unable to attend preschool at Crandall elementary school. Why is public education based on a parent’s income? I am not trying to send my 4 year old to college; I simply just want her to go to preschool. I know that I have the choice of placing her in a pre-k class in a local daycare, but this is not something I am interested in, unless I have absolutely no choice. It’s very aggravating to me that because I am not considered a low-income family, that my child gets deprived of an early education. Although, I am a 23-year-old single mother that works my butt off to make ends meet, (with NO help from the government) and sometimes it seems as if it’s for nothing, when I run into situations like this. Maybe, I could quit my job, get on section 8, food stamps, tanf, medicade and all the government assistance programs available and then my child would be eligible to go to preschool. That would never happen, but it just seems to me that the ones that do nothing to help themselves seem to get more than those of us who work hard everyday and make an honest living. Have any of you ever heard of such policies? Maybe, Hopefully, there’s a logical explanation for such rules, but I just don’t seem to get it. Someone please enlighten me….
