Letters: Readers discuss stressed nurses, Kansas City property tax and COVID cases
Help the nurses
The shortage of nurses is greatly damaging local hospitals and the care of our patients. With the stress of the pandemic, beloved nurses are pulling away from their careers. Local schools cannot graduate future nurses fast enough to create a dent in the national shortage.
This shortage causes nurses to care for too many patients and creates an unsafe working environment. Where I work, our staffing grid allows a one-nurse-to-eight-patient ratio. One of our nurses recently had to care for 10 patients at one time, including assessments, medication passes and other needs. This can create an overwhelming experience for any nurse, whether new or expert.
More needs to be done to ensure nurses do not abandon the career they once loved.
- Taylor Terry, Lee’s Summit
They’re to blame
I have an easy way to combat Texas’ insane new abortion law: Sue the state lawmakers who voted for it, on the grounds that they aided and abetted an abortion. All that is needed is one woman who rushed to have an abortion before the law went into effect and who will testify that the lawmakers’ decision helped her to make her choice.
If this sounds legally dubious, far-fetched and even crazy, it’s no more so than the law itself. Let the courts decide.
- Diana Richards, Overland Park
Natural outcomes?
Reading between the lines from the Mayo Clinic website, we might be able to reach herd immunity (perhaps 70% immunity) to the COVID-19 virus through a combination of vaccines and natural infections, both producing protective antibodies against future infections.
So, in a macabre way, the packed college football stadiums we are now seeing will help unvaccinated people get infected with the virus and then recover. Of course, the obvious downside to this unpreferred method is the increased hospitalizations (which will add further exhaustion to our wonderful medical professionals) and increased unneeded deaths.
However, if and when we reach herd immunity in this combination way, those who recovered from natural infection would not be protected forever, as their antibodies wane over time, whereas the vaccinated population could continue to be protected with booster shots down the line as recommended by the experts.
- Esmond Eugene Harrison, Mission
In the fog
Nearly one-quarter of all American and British combat deaths in the Iraq war resulted from friendly fire. The same can be said of combat deaths throughout military history. Never forget Pat Tillman’s friendly fire death in Afghanistan.
The tragic deaths during America’s recent withdrawal were surely that, but until you walk in the shoes of a fisherman, you ought not criticize that fisherman. We must always try to avoid mistakes made in the fog of war.
- Richard Marien, Overland Park
Taxed out
The Sept. 15 front-page story “A cool connector of Kansas City — at what price?” talked to South Plaza resident Keith Spare, who is concerned that property taxes in his neighborhood will increase as the streetcar route is expanded. He has rightful concerns.
In similar situations, grandfather clauses have allowed property taxes for seniors and lower-income earners to remain steady. I had an uncle who lived north of San Diego on a very valuable piece of property. He could not have afforded to stay in his home had his property taxes not been grandfathered.
Kansas City needs to reinstate that process wherever needed.
- Sally Carr, Bucyrus, Kansas
