1986-10-21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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S28R The Board of Health is in business to do public health work such as communicable diseases and the general welfare of the public's health and going out and chang- ing bandages of a resident is not the work of a public health department. The Board of Health is not the one to be paying the V.N.A. nurses for doing this type of work. Mr. Smith said if the nurses are doing "Board of Health" type nursing they should be promoting the Board of Health but they are always promoting just them- selves. Dr. Asarkof said they are the VISITING NURSES OF ARLINGTON, ETC. and he thinks_ they make a profit. Dr. Finkelstein said they are charted as a non-profit organization. Dr. Asarkof said that for this fiscal year budget they requested that the Board allow them to charge more for each visit. He feels they also collect from Medi- caid or Medicare for the same visit they charge us. Dr. Asarkof said he does not see why, on their statistics sheet, they charge the Board of Health for "new born care." Why should we pay for that, he wanted to know. Dr. Finkelstein said someone should write to the Town Manager telling him that the Board is concerned about the welfare of the elderly and the need to help them out if they cannot pay, but someone should do a study. He feels that the way it is set up right now, it is our responsibility and we were made out to be the bad guys. Dr. Asarkof said we were already made out to be the bad guys. There was one case he explained to Dr. Finkelstein of a woman who became ill, the V.N.A. handled it improp- erly and then proceeded to put the blame on the Board of Health. Dr. Finkelstein said it is the town's responsibility to study and decide how the program will be run - with the endorsement of the Board of Health. Dr. Asarkof said the Council on Aging is upstairs right now meeting with the Human Services Committee in regard to the Visiting Nurses. Mr. Smith said that the Board of Health should be simple and straight forward on this issue. The nurses are working outside the realm of public health. He said we are into something we shouldn't be in. Part of the answer is to just tell them we want the nurses to do public health work. Staff our clinics, follow-up on communicable diseases, etc. Anything further than that should be further studied by the town. Dr. Goldmann said we have set the policy and we are not going to take care of the individual health needs of the poor. The town should decide if they want to appoint someone to examine the whole picture. The Board wants this to be settled. After further discussion, the Board has agreed that a letter should be written suggesting that a study/survey should be done in regard to handling this problem of aiding the poor with medical care. Dr. Goldmann wanted to know when they were going to deal with the AIDS policy. The Board and the Director agreed to take it up at their next meeting.