To the editor:

Our county commissioners have told Jan Jenkins, executive director of our Visiting Nurses Assn., that she simply must make more drastic cuts in her budget for next year! She has already eliminated a waiting list of 84 people needing home care services now, she has cut her staff’s salaries, she has eliminated their overtime pay and VNA’s retirement contributions. But it’s still not enough!

She must now tell her dedicated staff that they can no longer follow the dictates of their training and their consciences. They must simply respond to this administration’s harsh Medicaid and Medicare cuts, which have brought on this dilemma, by telling their vulnerable elderly clients trying to live out their waning years in the dignity and familiarity of their own homes, that VNA no longer can meet their needs! Ill people on the long road to recovery and people with challenging disabilities must be told that their home care needs can no longer be assured as they are needed. The rules have been changed! Visits must be limited, even though the needs are as dire as they ever were.

On Aug. 11, the county budget will be finalized. It is true that our county commissioners cannot make up for all of the severe cuts our federal government has instituted and imposed upon our state. But, what they can do, they surely should. Now is the time to let our county commissioners know what VNA has meant in the lives of our community.

Hilda Enoch,

Lawrence