Newspaper Page Text
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THE RED AND BLACK
An independent student newspaper serving the 1 University of Geoigio community
Athens. Go. Vo!. 90, No. 47 Tuesday, Jon. 18, 1983 News 543-1809 Advertising 543-1791
New computer
will help police
Bv SIIERI FOX
H«l and Black Senior Reporter
Nursing homes caught in financial bind
First of two parts
By MELISSA JORDAN
Red and Black Staff Writer
For more than a year, many of the too
elderly residents of Grandview Care
Center in Athens have lived with their
fingers poised above the panic button. A
Medicaid-supported nursing-home
patient’s keepable income of $25 a month
doesn't go very far.
Coy Williamson, Grandview’s ad
ministrator, thinks a proposed $5.4 million
hike in state payments to nursing-home
operators under Medicaid may be the
answer to the problem
“I need an increase," Williamson said.
"We don’t have any choice. When you
con’t have the money, you can’t provide
the care. ’’
Georgia’s average reimbursement rate
of $27.35 per patient to nursing homes is
the lowest of any Southeastern state, said
George Hunt, executive vice president of
the Georgia Health Care Association.
Hunt said the low reimbursement rate
made it impossible for nursing homes to
compete with hospitals for qualified staff.
“Your care can only be as good as the
people on your staff," Williamson said.
"You don’t want the cheapest, most un
skilled people working on your grand
mother.
"We have a good staff, a dedicated
staff," he added. “But you can only expect
them to be dedicated for so long."
Grandview receives $26.39 per patient
per day in reimbursement, compared to
Athens General Hospital’s rate of $130.
To further complicate matters, former-
Gov. George Busbee dropped a bomb on
nursing-home operators in November 1981
when he cut reimbursement rates by 7.2
percent The decreased rates remained
until then-House Appropriations Com
mittee Chairman Joe Frank Harris in
troduced a bill restoring the funds It
didn't make up for the money already lost.
“It was like hitting the panic button at
first,” said Betty Brown Williamson,
Grandview’s assistant administrator and
wife of Coy Williamson 'it took a lot of
love and attention to assure the patients
they were not going to be thrown out into
the streets.
"We did the best we could with what we
had," she added "But you can't get blood
out of a turnip. It was an extreme hard
ship."
Said Coy Williamson: “We had to lay off
some people because we just didn’t have
the money to pay them. The nurses had to
double up and even mop the floors on the
night shift."
"That’s what makes me angry," said
Kathy Wharton, administrator of Athens'
“There is some feeling that they (nur
sing home staff! are not properly
qualified," said Marietta Suhart, head of
the gerontology program of the Georgia
Center for Continuing Education. "No
training at all is required for nurse's
aids."
Suhart pointed out flaws in the nursing-
home-review process, conducted
primarily by the Department of Human
Resources.
"They can't domuchabout the quality of
care," she said. “If there are ants and
roaches in the kitchen, or other physical
things, the reviewer doesn't have trouble
noting those But the quality of care is
something that has to start from the
beginning, with the training of the staff' ’
Coy Williamson said some people's
attitudes toward the Medicaid system and
government funding of elderly health care
didn't help matters, either
"These people (nursing home patients)
weren't bums," he said "The majority of
them worked hard all their lives. They
weren't poor until they got 65 The system
makes them poor."
Please See NURSING, Page 6
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Cedar Hill Nursing Home “They say they
won’t cut back in nursing, only in
housekeeping, laundry and dietary Well,
what do they think good nursing is?”
Critics of the present reimbursement
system say the flat per-patient rate may
be an incentive for nursing home
operators to discriminate against patients
needing extensive — and expensive —
care.
Wharton said there were indeed
problems with the current per diem rate.
It doesn’t average out in terms of the
cost of the illness,’’ she said. "Some
patients require more dressing changes,
or have to be tube-fed, but we’re not being
reimbursed for the additional cost.”
A University expert on aging says,
however, that the proper emphasis should
be on training and nursing-home reviews
Dorm residents lobby
for increased parking
By BOB KEYES
Hrd and Blark Staff Writer
A representative of the Myers Hall
Council will meet today with Campus
Planning Director Dave I .unde to
discuss the council’s objections to the
proposed construction of a $3.2 million
multilevel parking deck between
Myers Hall and the Georgia Center for
Continuing Education
Council member Brett Holder said he
would meet with Lunde to gather in
formation about the proposed structure
and to discuss the future parking status
of Myers Community residents.
Of particular concern, Holder said, is
a Campus Planning provision
prohibiting student parking in the
proposed deck Holder and other
council members said they felt the
restriction would cause an in
convenience to Myers residents, for
cing them to park in the lot now used by
the Georgia Center across from the
Coliseum.
The proposed deck will be used ex
clusively by Georgia Center employees
and guests and University faculty
members, according to Lunde.
The Board of Regents has not
allocated construction funds yet, Lunde
said, and no proposed date for begin
ning construction has been set.
Meanwhile, members of the council
are drafting a petition asking Campus
Planning to provide student parking
space in the deck equal to that
currently provided in the Myers lot.
Council member Mike Provan said
the petition would be circulated later
this week to all on-campus residents
and would solicit student support for
the Myers Council’s position. Provan is
drafting the petition
"We want to show them we give a
damn, and that’s why I want everybody
to sign it," he said
Provan said the council had not
decided exactly what it would do with
the petition once it was collected,
but they will likely be used as leverage
to back up the council's stand on the
parking issue, he said.
Holder said he expected most dorm
residents would sign the petition.
“We recognize the fact that they’re
going to put a parking deck there no
matter what we say," Holder said,
adding that the council would be
pleased with any kind of campus
planning concession providing student
parking space.
Holder said the council originally
wanted the deck moved, but members
were told by Campus Planning officials
that such a demand would require
20,000 signatures.
Instead, the council decided to just
protest the lack of student spaces In the
proposed deck.
Holder said he believed the council
would get considerable student support
for that request.
Another concern of the council is
where residents will park when, and if,
construction begins, Holder said One
proposal is to convert the parking
spaces across from Soule Hall from
employee to resident parking, ac
cording to council president Forrest
Ashworth.
Parking Services’ new computer program, which allows
daily entries of parking violations, will mean "greater en
forcement of parking violations." Joe Broadhurst, director of
Business Services, said Monday.
He said the new program, which will be fully operative by
July 1, was more efficient because it is an on-line system that
allows information on vehicles, their owners and violation
histories to be entered daily and retrieved immediately.
Under the old system, entries were made weekly, and in
formation was not available until monthly reports were
printed.
Complete records on cars registered with Public Safety
can now be processed in two weeks or less. Broadhurst said
this process lasted about a quarter and half under the old
system.
Another bonus of the new program is
that violators can be traced whether
their vehicles are registered or not
because the computer is now linked
with the state department of vehicular
registration.
Out-of-state vehicles still pose a prob
lem even with the new computer pro
gram, Broadhurst said. If campus
police notice an out-of-state vehicle is
accumulating tickets, it is placed on a
list and will eventually be towed.
In either case, student records can be
flagged by the end of the quarter in
which their violations accumulate
because the parking histories will be
readily available.
Harry Grothjahn, director of data
processing, said his department began
working on the computer program last
spring and has devoted approximately
1,200 hours to its development.
The uses of the new program are not
all negative, Broadhurst said.
For instance, if someone has left his
lights on or has a flat tire, campus
police can consult the computer to find
out who owns the vehicle and can then
track down the owner, Broadhurst said.
The University had about 32,000
vehicles registered at the beginning of
fall quarter, Broadhurst said, and only
about 11,000 spaces available.
“Of course they’re not all on campus
at the same time," he said
Efforts to ease the parking situation
include “promising" negotiations for
the purchase of land, Broadhurst said,
as well as plans for three multi level
parking lots.
One of the multi-level lots will be
located in the Myers Hall lot, he said
The possible locations of the other two
lots are on north campus near the
Visual Arts Building, and near the
Baptist Student Union on North
Lumpkin Street
Funds have already been allocated
for the planning of the lots, Broadhurst
said, but construction funds are still
lacking
Broadhurst also said new spaces for
motorcycles would be added around the
Law School and main library to
alleviate a parking shortage that
sometimes causes motorcycle riders to
park on the sidewalks, making travel
difficult for handicapped students
Brooks calls on blacks to get politically involved
Students carry banner commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday
Tania IHm k worth
By BETH LILLY
Mrd and Hlark Stall Writer
State Rep Tyrone Brooks says Gov. Jim* Frank
Harris has told him he will support a bill
establishing Martin Luther King Jr's birthday as
a state holiday, hut that, Brooks says, is not
enough.
Brooks doesn’t want anything more out of
Harris What he wants is increased political ac
tivity by blacks, and that ’s what he told a crowd of
some 300 people gathered at the Clarke County
Courthouse last Friday.
Blacks who refuse to be active in the political
system, the Atlanta legislator told the crowd that
had gathered to commemorate the slain civil
rights leader s birthday, are “kicking dirt in the
face of Martin Luther King Jr ”
Only by voter registration and participation will
blacks be able to enact legislation affecting them,
he added
Brooks said Harris told him privately last week
he would support the bill making King’s Jan 15
birthday a state holiday
Brooks said he deplored the fact that King,
recognized worldwide as Georgia's most famous
native, was not honored in his home state as he
deserved
Meanwhile, President Reagan, in his regular
Saturday radio address to the nation, called on the
nation to pay respects to King by observing his
memory He said, however, that he didn’t favor
making King’s birthday a national holiday That
responsibility rests with the individual states, he
added
Brooks encouraged blacks to join lobbies and ex
press to legislators their opposition to the Reagan
Administration's “workfare” program, in which
Welfare recipients must also work 40 hours a
week He charged the program was “legalized
slavery” and that it punished those on public
assistance rolls. He said recipients were
“ostracized by society” and suffered a "lack of
privacy.”
In other comments at Friday’s rally. Brooks en
couraged students to be less devoted to social ac
tivities and more devoted to studying
“You are here from the blood, sweat and tears
of black people and white people,” he said, adding
that young adults should attempt to justify their
parents sacrifices by taking advantage of the op
portunity for education.
Two charged
for theft
at stadium
By TOMMY SIMS
Krd and Black Senior Reporter
A University student and a Kennesaw College student were
arrested at Sanford Stadium early Sunday morning and
charged with theft by taking, University police announced
Monday.
James David Loyal, an 18-year-old University freshman
from Snellville, and Thomas M Johnston, a 19-year-old
Kennesaw College student from Woodstock, were charged
with attempting to steal property valued at $558 from Sanford
Stadium, said Maj. Ernest Nix of the University police.
The two will probably appear in Athens/Clarke County
Magistrate's Court a week after their call date, which is
tentatively set for Feb. 2, said Nancy Cochran, a
Magistrate’s court clerk
Magistrate’s Court Judge Pierre Boulogne will preside
over the hearing and, because the charge is a felony, it could
be bound over to Superior Court, Cochran said.
Nix said an investigation of the incident was still un
derway, and that he hadn't seen the police report Monday
afternoon.
Police said Loyal and Johnston were arrested while
leaving the stadium with two stadium chairs, valued at $60
each; one stadium light, valued at $250, three door signs,
valued at $15 each; one gate sign, valued at $75; one fire
extinguisher, valued at $28; and a phone receiver and cord,
valued at $40.
Loyal refused to comment on the incident Monday.
University police also reported Monday that an Indian
artifact collection valued at $300 was taken from Flinchum's
Phoenix, a campus building at the University's Whitehall
Forest headquarters near College Station, between Jan. 1
and Jan. 11.
Nix said University police have just begun investigating
the incident.
The collection contained pottery fragments, scrapers and
arrowheads which had been donated to the School of Forest
Resources by Dr. and Mrs. Charles Fitzgerald.