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Dear Readers: Please note that this is not a City of Long Beach website and is not paid for nor maintained by taxpayer funds.

If you contact Gerrie Schipske through this site on any matter pertaining to the City of Long Beach, a copy of your contact will be forwarded to her official city email as an official public record.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

LB Health Care Reform Town Hall Sobering

I was invited to speak at a town hall on health care reform sponsored by St. Mary Medical Center. Congresswoman Laura Richardson and several other speakers also talked about the need to reform our current health care system.

While most of the speakers focused upon changing the financing of health care, I spoke on the need to deal with the delivery system.

Below are some of my remarks:

"As the first Registered Nurse Practitioner to sit on the Medical Board of California, the agency which licenses and disciplines the 117,000 plus physicians in my state, I need to share with you my perspective on how the current health care system is taking its toll on these physicians and putting the medical profession at odds with the nursing profession and how if these problems are not addressed, we will not be able to ensure that every American has access to health care.

More and more doctors say they want to leave the profession in the next few years. Many others say they wouldn’t recommend the profession to their own children. The suicide rate among male physicians is 40% higher than among the general male population and 130% higher among female physicians than among the general female population.

Those who remain in medicine are mad as hell.

Who can blame them? Doctors are under constant attack from about everyone, for trying to do what they spent many years in training to do.

Doctors note that they are no longer the “captain of the ship” in health care. The medical profession no longer provides the autonomy nor the prestige once given, as insurance companies pay doctors pennies on the dollar for the care they provide and managed care company clerks place limits on the type of care they can give. Doctors spend too much time filling out forms and focusing upon billing problems; time that could be better spent with their patients or their own families.

They agonize as they watch helplessly as some of their seriously ill patients struggle to get insurance companies to cover their health care needs or to pay for the prescription medicine that could save their lives.

The government tells doctors whom they must treat and fines them if they don’t. Patients sue when they don’t like the outcome of the care they receive resulting in malpractice insurance coverage costs taking more of their income.

We began having a shortage of physicians in this country beginning in the 1980’s -- just about the time managed care arrived and began undercutting how doctors practice medicine. To fill this shortage, my own profession provided advanced clinical training for nurses who became nurse practitioners. Although paid far less than physicians, nurse practitioners nonetheless provide primary care in many health care settings.

Many physicians perceive expanding the “scope of practice” of non-physicians to allow health care professionals such as nurse practitioners to diagnose, treat and prescribe, as a further attack on the status of medicine and are waging battles in several states to stop the expanded authority of nurse practitioners. This despite the fact that most studies show that nurse practitioners can safely and effectively provide 80% of all primary care.

The medical community recently sounded the alarm against the a new “Doctor of Nursing Practice” that moves nursing in the direction of other health professions such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, psychology, physical therapy and audiology which all offer clinical practice doctorates.

Expanded scope of practice for non-physicians has been the only means of meeting the need of providing access to health care in many communities.

We need to bring the medical and nursing professions together to discuss how we can work collaboratively to expand access to patient centered primary care in this country.

In some health care settings, that may involve physicians and nurse practitioners working in “multidisciplinary teams” with the “understanding of the distinctive roles, skills, and values of all team members” – as the American College of Physicians just stated in its policy monograph about nurse practitioners in primary care.

But it may also require that in some health care settings, nurse practitioners substitute or replace primary care physicians in order to provide access to primary health care; a possibility that the American College of Physicians strongly opposed in the same monograph.

This independent role of nurse practitioners (which is already allowed in several states: AK, AZ, DC, IA, ID, MT, NH, NM, OR, WA) obviously requires acknowledgement that appropriately trained nurse practitioners can safely and effectively provide such care and that they can access other health care resources such as admitting privileges at hospitals, adequate malpractice insurance and equitable reimbursement for the care provided.

Our health care system must acknowledge and value that each profession, by its training, has a different focus on patient care. Nurse Practitioners are often sought by patients because of our abilities to spend more time with patients and our holistic approach in caring for patients and their families. Physicians have extensive clinical training and experience and are consulted when the patient’s condition requires advanced care. Using a combination of medical and nursing professionals expands the sources of care in all communities.

Medicine and nursing must not be at war with each other over whom should care for patients, especially at a time when such care is so needed in our country.

We need to bring about a change in our health care system that not only benefits patients but those who provide the care."


Note: My remarks are my own and not to be construed in anyway as reflecting the California Medical Board.


Thursday, July 2, 2009

Some things you can't do in Long Beach...

Thought I would post a partial list of the "most common life-safety and quality of life Long Beach Municipal Code Violations" otherwise known as the list of things you cannot do in Long Beach. If you see any of these violations, please call my office at 562.570-6932 and we'll send out Code Enforcement to cite the offender:

  • Discharge fireworks
  • Obstruction/storage blocking ingress and egress
  • Locked, latched, chained exist doors prevent egress
  • No exit sign
  • Inoperable smoke detector or fire extinguisher (for business)
  • Excessive fuels (over 5 gallons) stored in dwellings or garages
  • Weeds or unsightly debris visable to public view
  • Abandoned, boarded up buildings
  • Broken windows
  • Overgrown vegetation
  • Junk in front or side yard
  • Trash cans stored in front or side yard visible from street
  • Graffiti
  • Garage conversion
  • Extension cords used as a substitute for permanent wiring
  • Spitting/discharging mucus from nose or mouth on sidewalk or public place
  • Vandalism
  • Possession of alcohol in public park
  • Juvenile (under 18) curfew violation -- 10 pm to 6 am
  • Shed, add-on, non-permitted room used as dwelling
  • Unsafe housing
  • Possession of a shopping cart
  • Loud music
  • Storing, selling, displaying vehicles for sale on street
  • Repairing, painting, displaying automobiles on street
  • Living in the parks
  • Canopies in driveways or front area or side area

Inside the C-17

Wow, what an experience I had yesterday --thanks in part to Congresswoman Laura Richardson. You see she was visiting the Boeing plant to talk to executives and workers about the importance of continuing the C-17. I attended because Boeing is in my district (and the Mayor and Vice Mayor were not available).

We had several briefings and then went to the plant to view a plane being assembled and then on to a finished plane where we entered the cockpit and the two of us sat in the pilot and co-pilot seats. (No, I don't know which was which...)

Anyway I credit Laura for my access because she made certain that I was included up front and she acknowledged my being there several times. (This is something Asssemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal is also very good at doing when she attends an event and there are other elected officials.)

We also met with several of the suppliers -- companies which provide parts and other services to make the C-17 happen. They and the employees at Boeing amount to 30,000 jobs across the US directly related to the C-17.

The Air Force continues to say privately it wants the C-17 as its cargo plane -- because of problems with the C-5. However, when the budget comes, AF doesn't put a request in for it. So the House of Representatives added a request for 15 planes.

Currently, most of the planes being purchased are for commercial uses in the Middle East. The C-17 requires little crew, is reliable and can carry a ton (actually many tons) of cargo and personnel.

Long Beach needs the C-17. So does the U.S.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Nominate Your Good Neighbors

It's that time of the year when I ask residents to nominate organizations, youths or adults who have earned the title "Good Neighbor." That means they went out of their way to do something special that qualifies them to be called a "Good Neighbor."

You can click here and go on line and complete the nomination form.

Please don't nominate yourself because the nomination needs to come from someone else who thinks you deserve to be honored and I have to announce you nominated yourself.

I need the forms completed not later than August 31st so that I can give out the awards at the 3rd Annual Good Neighbor Festival and Picnic on Saturday, September 26th at 10 am until 3 pm in the Good Neighbor Park at Studebaker and Barrios.

By the way, this year's festival and picnic will be a lot of fun: free food and drink, music by The Elm Street Band, pie eating contest, penny arcade, info booths, free bike helmets, games for kids, and a sidewalk chalk art contest.

So mark your calendars and enjoy.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Back in Long Beach -- after Metropolitan Water District Tour

Vacation is over. Back to business in Long Beach. Several issues are brewing -- allowing alcohol in the parks; the proposal wetlands land swap; the $3 million debt of the Musuem of Art; the growing City deficit with threatened state take aways.

Yesterday I went on a day long tour of Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County to view a portion of the water system maintained by the Metropolitan Water District which provides most of Long Beach's water.

5th District resident and neighborhood activist, Phyllis Ortman, led the tour. She is employed by MWD and has to be the most knowledgeable person on water issues that I have met.

It was very hot down there in Riverside. Diamond Valley Lake has a visitors' center and the Western Center for Archeology and Paleontology -- which is worth the trip.

The excitement of the day was when the wind whipped up and blew my hat off into the treatment basin. Yes, it had to be fished out and for a brief moment as the hat floated on the water it looked like I may have gone overboard too.

Save Station 18

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