Doctors and nurses by and large work
hand in hand together to ensure patients well-being, however Tuesday
they were opposing each other at a House hearing on a bill that would
allow nurses to have more autonomy.
Advance-practices nurses request
legislators to remove a regulation that they must become part of a
mutual agreement with a physician stationed within 15 miles.
They can count on House Bill 605 to do
that.
A number of physicians expressed their feelings against the
change, at the same time nurses defended it would advance business
and boost access to health care.
According to Gayle Harrell, a nurse practitioner whose clinic is
situated in the Baptist Health complex on North State Street in
Jackson, "Many nurse practitioners have become business people
and have opened their own clinics, investing in their communities."
Harell said the process is being slowed down because some have had
the difficulty finding a collaborating physician.
President of the Mississippi State Medical Association, Dr. Tim
Alford of Kosciusko, said the model offers a form of required
clinical oversight.
"Guess who wins? The patient," he said.
House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Steve
Holland's expectation was the bill "may or may not" move on
to the floor.
The following are the advance practice nurses: nurse practitioners,
certified registered nurse anesthetists, and midwives.
On the nurses side is the ARRP, explaining the increasing aged
populace will add patients to an already extended system.
The nurses rallied on the side of AARP in its campaign for a home-
and community-based services, earlier in the day.
Holland agreed to Gov. Haley Barbour's promise to arrange an
additional 7,800 slots for Medicaid waiver programs, at a news
conference,
"If you can keep your loved one at home and treat them at
home, that's so much better than being in an institution," said
Holland, D-Plantersville.
Mary Devine agrees.
Devine's aging mother broke her hip six years ago. She was
seriously considering nursing homes when a social worker told them
about a Medicaid waiver that would permit her mother to stay at home.
Before Mary Louise Griffith, 99, was
finally signed up, she spent a year on the waiting list. Presently,
twice a week, someone comes in her Brandon home and helps her with
chores.
Devine said, "This allowed her to be in her own home and
gives that assistance that she needs."
Barbour declared he had ordered the Division of Medicaid to use a
roughly $50 million surplus to expand the program, in his State of
the State speech last week, an act that will clear the waiting lists
and free up nearly 1,700 slots.
Jackson citizen Brenda Smith declared, "That would absolutely
be a miracle for me."
Smith is on the waiting list for the Elderly and Disabled Waiver
Program. She revealed she has six chronic medical conditions and lost
her nursing job last August.
The waiting list is really long.
Johnny Stringer, D-Montrose a House Appropriation Committee
Chairman, claimed he is worried about the plan's cost. The expansion
needs to be carried out, he said, but "We don't have enough
money to fund state government."
Director of governmental affairs for AARP Mississippi, Kurt
Hellmann, called the issue one of the most crucial facing the state:
"You're going to look in the mirror one day, and all of the
sudden you're going to see yourself a lot older."