DATE: Wednesday, March 19, 1997             TAG: 9703190006

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Letters

                                            LENGTH:  113 lines

LETTERS

CHESAPEAKE

Aspirin no cure for historic headache

With regard to the March 5 article on the opening of Rite Aid in Great Bridge - again, Rite Aid doesn't get it. They say they are having slow business at their opening, as most businesses do, but Target certainly didn't have a slow opening last July in a new shopping center. The community has protested this location since its inception because of historic preservation.

My family finds it easy to boycott this site simply because it is too serious of a traffic risk to access from the southern section of the city. Also, I can't see taking my daughter to Rite Aid on a field trip to show her our rich heritage and the history of the Battle of Great Bridge, and picking up aspirin while I'm there.

We should be thankful for people like Mr. Rockefeller who, instead of restoring Colonial Williamsburg to its present splendor, could have instead built an oil refinery and asked us to learn about our Colonial past by viewing etchings on a wall at our local Amoco stations.

Beverly Pillers

Chesapeake, March 10, 1997

HEALTH

Care providers should be liable

For the past several months I have had a column written by Joan Beck on my desk titled, ``We have much to worry about with Dr. lawmakers legislating.'' She paints a frightening scenario of mandated hospital stays and health-care coverage that many Americans may not want or need. This was recently seconded by Stephen Chapman in his ``Government is improving health insurance to death.''

Consumers will be forced to pay for these mandates with increased health-insurance premiums. This is not to say that the managed-health-care industry doesn't have the potential for forcing premature hospital discharges or denying needed care. However, to legislate hospital stays or to have President Clinton wave such folly in front of the nation as he did in his State of the Union message is laughable indeed.

A far better solution to the problem is to make those who make such decisions liable for their actions. If health plans, instead of physicians, were liable for untoward events related to premature hospital discharge, this silliness would end tomorrow.

One-day hospital stays for labor and delivery and outpatient mastectomy may be safest and the prudent thing for many patients. Physicians and the patient can best decide what is needed, even in a managed-care setting. Physicians already have the legal liability. When legislators mandate physician agreement with managed-care company initiatives, they will be doing their constituencies a service and protecting the nation's health.

Jonathan W. Miller, M.D.

Virginia Beach, March 12, 1997

FAMILIES

Parents should be leaders and friends

I am writing in regard to the article ``Listen, be honest, keep talking'' on the March 1 Perspectives page. I would like to commend Joanne Jacobs for writing this much-needed column.

I believe that the behavior of today's teen-agers is due to their upbringing. Children whose parents taught them good values, and how to believe in themselves, have a better sense of knowing right from wrong, as well as a better resistance to peer pressure. Whether parents choose to believe it or not, the pressures are out there. Sex and drugs are but a few.

I think many teen-agers end up with a feeling of resentment toward their parents because they think of them only as figures of authority and not ones they can confide in. Teens need their parents to be their leaders and their friends.

Kristen A. Oldham

Chesapeake, March 4, 1997

EDUCATION

No-frills plan deserves praise

In the discussion of the Virginia Beach public school budget, one important detail seems to have been overlooked. Timothy Jenny appears to define, through his budget submission, the minimum (or no frills) program for the system. This was a long-awaited, courageous act, and he should be applauded for the effort. Those who have commented negatively on his budget submission appear to fall into two great fallacies of education.

The first fallacy is in equating dollars per student to educational quality. The second is that more special programs (magnet schools, for example) are indicative of a better-quality school system. The true measure of any school system is in how well it prepares its students to proceed to immediate employment or to post-secondary education or training. Everything else is frills at the taxpayers' expense.

The average kids in today's schools never seem to get a break. The big bucks go to the top of the class to boost them along, and to the bottom of the class to get them through. The 80 percent in the middle always appear to be disenfranchised. If Jenny's budget implies that it's time to get back to meat and potatoes, fewer frills and more quality for all students, then let me be the first to shout bravo.

James A. Grace

Virginia Beach, March 12, 1997

JUVENILES

Pines program helps many kids

I understand the distress relating to possibly dangerous youths running away from The Pines. My concern is that we may be tempted to ``throw out the baby with the bath.'' There have been obvious lapses in security with this population, but there are other nondangerous troubled youth who are successfully treated at The Pines.

I had the good fortune of doing an internship in The Pines' Child and Adolescent Unit last year. The high quality of the professional skills and dedication of staff is remarkable. The psychiatrist, counselors, residential staff and support people are truly dedicated to the highest-quality effective treatment.

Because of the intensive therapy in which they participate, many children are able to return to their communities with new-found skills which will prevent them from becoming the violent offenders we fear releasing into society. Let's attack the problem rather than the whole organization.

Arthur Chadwick

Chesapeake, March 8, 1997

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