From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for March 5, 1989:

• Nurses at Lawrence Memorial Hospital were featured in an article today in which they spoke of their concerns regarding a nursing shortage that was causing problems on the state and national level as well as locally. At LMH, one nurse said, there was sometimes a “serious problem.” On a good day at LMH, a team of one registered nurse and one aide was responsible for eight to 11 patients, but when there was a staff shortage, the count sometimes would increase to 16 patients per team. The American Hospital Association had recently estimated the nation’s hospitals were short 100,000 registered nurses. Locally, LMH was hiring every qualified nurse that applied, but the hospital still had 7.5 vacancies for RNs as of the previous week.
• Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. agreed this week to combine in an “old-fashioned merger,” creating an $18 billion media and entertainment empire. “There’s never been a deal like this in the media business. This is going to be a frighteningly powerful company,” said John S. Reidy, an analyst at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.