Newspaper Page Text
__________«•
VOLUME XCIV - NUMBER X> 2
aHBBWW a ■■HBPHBHKMi
^•riZ. -— _ ■ IT
l|Br * =v* Laißß®’ t
WK.-/ L—Z_ f ~ ^^BBB Jgfe
t xE; &.^^H|Bk ißi^^HKKSSrSfc'^ 4p^
|L,-■ - ■' «m*Rk
- - J
1 ’ I
■\—• ; I
'»'l' ■ ' '"• ' - , . i f y*' *'.'
' > •■ *
'■^ ' . **■ ' r ' ' " ■ - ’
I’ Jvt*^ ■■' it. Z-U ■- 4»» A* -••X'^ •«**» -MS# m -•■ “*'-■
Westside To Close
As Retarded Center
By DARRYL YOUNG
The Chattooga County School
Board of Education has been
burdened with the task of finding
new facilities within its jurisdic
tion for its trainable mentally
retarded (TMR) students former
ly served by Westside School in
the Trion school system, officials
said.
A change in state law is
responsible for the closing of
Westside as a TMR center, of
ficials said. In the past eight
years the state has funded
Westside and alloted teachers ac
cording to the number of
students enrolled there. Next
year's teacher allotment is based
on the number of students
residing within a given school
district, however.
Next year the Trion School
System will not get funding for
the 32 county students enrolled
at Westside, Trion Superinten
dent Bill Kinzy said, because they
live within the county school’s
jurisdiction. “We lost the funding
for three teachers because of re
cent change in the law,” Kinzy
said. He explained that the Trion
system does not have adequate
funds to maintain the school
without the state allotment given
for the county students.
“If we maintained Westside
on our own, it would cost us
$50,000, and we only have one
resident enrolled there,” Kinzy
said. Next year Trion will pay the
county tuition for that student,
he explained.
The two local school
superintendents were not inform
ed of the change in the state’s
allotment procedure until recent
ly, Kinzy said, “giving us little
time to make the necessary
changes.”
Chattooga County
Superintendent Bill King and
school board members met with
representatives of two local child
day care centers Thursday to
discuss the possibility of using
those school-owned sites for a
TMR center. If one of those
centers is converted to a TMR
school, the day care program
would have the problem of finding
other facilities, it was noted at the
meeting.
The two sites under considera
tion are the Parent-Child Center
in Summerville and the Holland
Day Care Center. Represen
tatives from both centers oppos
ed being forced to move at the
called meeting.
In a later discussion, Joe Can
non, director of the Holland Day
Ben Mosley
Heads HSA
Ben Mosley of Summerville
was named president last Thurs
day of the Appalachian Georgia
Health Systems Agency, at the
annual meeting of the Board of
Directors of the AGHSA in
Gainesville.
The agency was one of dozens
established by Congress in 1973
to curtail health costs. There are
23 counties in north Georgia, not
including Walker and Dade, that
are served by the agency, he said.
The agency has 75 members.
“If any hospital, nursing home
or any facility that uses federal
funds, for example, wants to ex
pand or build a new building,”
Mosley explained, “they have to
appear before the board and show
us that there is a need for this
before they can build. If we feel
there is a need, then we give them
the go-ahead to build or expand.
“We try to look at the com
munities’ health problems and
needs,” continued" Mosley. "We
try to keep costs from climbing
by encouraging hospitals, for ex
ample, to use less expensive
drugs instead of the brand name
ones that cost so much.”
ahe ^ummerutlle Neuw
Care Center, said, “I would hate
to see them affect either
program.” One disadvantage of
the Holland site, Cannon said, is
the expense of busing students to
and from the remote center.
If one of the centers were to be
“evicted,” he noted, “no suitable
building is available” to move in
to. “We’ve been looking,” he com
mented. Another problem the
Holland Day Care Center would
have with moving is financial.
“The center’s budget has been
set,” Cannon said, pointing out
that, the additional expense of
moving has not been worked into
this year’s budget.
From the description of the
location of the Holland center, a
state education official said his
department would most likely not
fund such a remote center. “We
want the handicapped students
around normal students as much
as possible. We are trying to
prepare them to go into society,”
he said.
A third possible site for a
TMR school, King said, is at one
of the county schools. Portable
classrooms could be located on
school grounds, allowing the
students the use of the school
facilities while also providing the
TMR students with private
classrooms, he said.
King expects the Chattooga
County School Board will make a
decision “soon” on where the new
TMR center will be located.
I II
I ’wu’
fWWBiWwwIt * ' W i
1 BBm gflBM
IB t* f WTT■ B^B ^^B^ - ■
KJ
Vending Machine Accepts Dollar
Wometco Enterprise Inc.’s Trion assistant manager
Bill Stephens inserts the working mechanism that will
modify the vending machine so it can accept the new
dollar coin due to be circulated next month. The com
pany plans to convert 200 of their 4,000 vending
machines to take the new Susan B. Anthony Dollar
Coin.
Wometco Ready For New Coin
The shrunken dollar has truly
arrived—and both the U. S.
government and a local company,
Wometco Enterprises Inc. have
recognized and prepared for it.
The dollar of the future, as the
U. S. Treasury calls it, is the
Susan B. Anthony dollar coin.
Only .08 inches bigger in diameter
than the quarter, the government
sees major advantages to its in
troduction into our monetary
system, Wometco officials agree.
The Trion operation of the
Wometco vending machine firm is
pleased with the introduction of
the new coin and will convert
roughly 200 of their 4,000
machines to accept the Anthony
dollar. Manager Charles Edwards
announced. The new coin goes in
to circulation in July.
The advent of the dollar ven
ding machine will “make possible
the sale of better-quality, higher
priced food and snack items,
SUMMERVILLE, CHATTOOGA COUNTY, GEORGIA 30747, THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1979
Funding for the teachers will
not come until January, King
said. Director of the Division of
Special Programs Allen Gurley
confirmed that the school system
will be reimbursed in January for
the first part of the school year.
Gurley said that the new law
mandating teacher allotments
based on school districts instead
of individual centers or schools is
not aimed at hurting anyone.
“We want school districts to pool
resources and consolidate the
special education schools,”
Gurley said. “This will make
them more cost efficient.”
The individual school districts
could sit down together and
budget the cost per child and
swap either cash dollars or
teacher allotment,” he said.
Kinzy said that both he and
King have looked at that
possibility but because of state
bureaucratic and financial pro
blems that seemingly simple solu
tion will not work in the case of
Westside.
Once a location for the TMR
center is found, Kinzy said, the
Westside equipment and teaching
aids will be transferred to that
facility. Last year’s teachers will
also be employed at the new
center, and the building will be us
ed for kindergarten classes next
year, he added.
“I wish it hadn’t happened; we
felt like we had a pretty good
center at Westside,” Kinzy said.
without the need of a pocketful of
change,” Edwards said. “This
will also make vending transac
tions more convenient for the
customer since fewer coins will be
necessary to make a purchase.
The newly-converted
machines will also benefit the
company by making it easier to
detect counterfeit coins and make
change for a dollar mechanically
than with the present currency
changers, Edwards explained.
“This could eliminate the need for
currency changers."
Wometco plans to convert
some of its vending machines to
accept the new coin sometime in
July. About one in 20 machines
will be converted by a simple ex
change of an approximate
20x10x10 coin changing module
that plugs into the existing
machine. Each module costs the
company about S4OO. An entire
vending machine typically costs
Committee Clears Hospital
Os Negligence Allegations
By TOM KIRWAN t
A special investigative panel has cleared the Chat
tooga County Hospital and its employees of allegations of
misconduct and negligence in connection with the treat
ment of an 11-year-old accident victim who died at Floyd
County Hospital three days after initially being treated at
the local facility.
In a memo to Hospital Authority Chairman Charles
Williams, who appointed three authority members to in
vestigate the allegations, the panel said, “After very
careful thoughtful evaluation your committee has arrived
at the conclusion that no act of negligence, either commis
sion or omission, occurred during the management and
treatment of patient, Rebecca Brinkley, admitted to the
hospital May 15, 1979 and subsequently transferred to
Floyd Medical Center by Chattooga County Ambulance
Service."
The panel was appointed late last month after family
members of Miss Brinkley attended a hospital authority
meeting to lodge a protest against what they described as
the shoddy treatment their daughter allegedly received at
the local hospital after she was injured when she
skateboarded into the path of a truck on Thomas Road
near her home in Trion on May 15. She was taken to the
local facility for treatment by the county ambulance ser
vice, and transferred to Floyd Medical Center some 5 1 /»
hours later. She died three days later from a massive blood
clot.
The girl’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Brinkley, along
with two of the girl’s aunts and a friend of the family,
made a number of allegations at the hospital authority
meeting. They charged that the nurse" on duty had not
kept their daughter under strict obs< v» .tn; that the
parents had not been informed that the ambulance was
not required to take their daughter to th. local facility and
could have gone directly to FMC; that the attending
physician missed a crack in the girl’s skull which showed
up on an X-ray; that the nurses failed to contact the
physicial when the girl spit up fresh blood; that aspirin
was given the girl during her observation period at a time
she needed to be alert; and that the chief nurse on duty
Mixed Reaction:
Some drug store owners in the
county have already started tak
ing drugs containing the chemical
methaphrilene off their shelves
while other owners say they’ll
wait until they receive word from
the manufacturers or government
before they do so.
The Food and Drug Ad
ministration announced recently
that methaphrilene is on the long
list of possible cancer-causing
agents and will be banned. The
chemical is widely-used in sleep
inducing drugs sold without
prescription. One study found
that nine out of 100 rats fed the
ingredient died of massive liver
tumors after 64 weeks of testing.
“All I’ve heard about it
(methaphrilene) is what has been
on TV and in the newspapers,”
said one local pharmacist. “I
haven’t heard anything from the
companies yet. However, some of
them—like Allerest and Sleep-
Eze—have already changed to
another chemical. Allerest, for ex- ■
ample, is using chlorpheniramine,
and Sleep-Eze is using
pyrilamine, an old antihistamine.
“As the companies send their
products with new chemicals,”
continued the pharmacist, “I take
the old one off the shelves and
display the new ones. I still have
some of the drugs that contain
methaphrilene on the shelves. It
will probably be months before I
receive anything telling me to
take the drugs off my
shelves—that’s just the way it
works.”
Another pharmacist who
hasn't taken the drugs with
methaphrilene off his shelves
said, "I have an elderly man that
takes one Sominex a night. He
says it helps him sleep better.
After all the talk came out about
methaphrilene, he wrote a letter
to the company asking them
from $1,500 to $4,000, he said.
With about one in 20 machines
being converted to accept the An
thony Dollar, each establishment
using Wometco machines should
have a one-dollar machine in ser
vice, Assistant Manager Bill
Stephens said.
The consumer should have no
trouble finding Anthony dollars
to buy Wometco products with,
since the treasury department is
planning to flood the United
States with 500 million of them in
the coming month. Another 80
million are scheduled for distribu
tion thereafter, a Treasury
Bureau of The Mint release
reports.
The government's decision to
change to the smaller Anthony
coin over what was commonly
called the “silver dollar” was
primarily economical. The silver
dollar costs 8 cents to produce
while the new dollar coin will cost
please not to take Sominex off the
market. He told them he was
elderly and that was all he could
take that helped him sleep.
“All the products with it
(methaphrilene) are still on my
shelves,” the pharmacist con
tinued. “Most people have heard
about it by now and they’ll weigh
the decision whether or not to
take them. I think most people
have the outlook that so many
things have been found to cause
cancer that they just say
‘something is going to get me
sooner or later!’
A third pharmacist The News
contacted said that he had receiv
ed a letter from the Block Drug
Company concerning
methaphrilene in Nytol tablets
and capsules.
"The letter recommended that
methaphrilene, an ingredient in
Nytol, should no longer be used in
consumer products because of a
potential health hazard," explain
ed the pharmacist. "They didn't
tell me I had to take it off my
shelves—they only recommended
it.
“So, we started yesterday
(Monday) going through the
drugs, reading the labels and tak
ing the ones with methaphrilene
off the shelves,” the pharmacist
continued. “I don’t think taking
them (the products) will give you
cancer. I guess it seems picky un
til you realize that when you put
all the cancer-causing agents
together in your body they could
kill you. I think they (the FDA) is
trying to take one cancer-causing
agent off the market at a time to
try and make it safer for the peo
ple.”
The alleged cancer-causing
agent is found in such drugs as
Sominex, Excedrin P.M., Nytol,
Allerest, Miles Nervine, Compoz
and Cope.
only 3 cents. A savings of $4.5
million will result, the govern
ment says.
Although each dollar bill costs
nearly 2 cents to produce, it has a
life expectancy of only 18 months.
The more-expensive coin will
balance the difference after 27
months of use and has another
dependable 12 years of projected
use after that break-even point,
the release notes.
Not only will tax dollars be
saved by the switch to the An
thony dollars, the government
says, but the general public and
business will benefit too.
The treasury department says
the dollar coin will:
* Save time and reduce errors
at cash registers.
* Be easy to withdraw and
drop into cash drawers of cash
registers.
* Save time in retailers’ coun
(Continued On Page 2)
was rude to the family.
Rebuttals or explanations to each of the allegations
were not contained in the memo sent Chairman Williams,
who appointed the committee to exhaustively investigate
the child’s treatment at the local hospital.
LONG MEETINGS
According to the panel’s chairman, authority member,
Katherine Camp, two evenings were set aside by the in
vestigatory committee to review each allegation with the
proper hospital employee. The two taped sessions were
lengthy: both started in the early evening, she said, with
one lasting until midnight and the other lasting until 2
a.m. The sessions were closed to the press.
According to the memo sent Williams, “Each allega
tion printed in The Summerville News May 30, 1979 was
considered, as well as the criticisms made by the family at
the hospital authority meeting May 28, 1979.
The memo goes on to clear the hospital employees, as
noted above, of negligence in the matter.
“Your committee has recognized that its responsibility
is not just to assess whether negligence in management of
a patient did occur.” the memo to Williams continues, but
to investigate why serious criticisms have been made con
cerning transportation and management care of a patient.
This is an awesome responsibility and in this very tragic
case not without a great deal of emotional trauma to all
parties involved or concerned.
“We have therefore enclosed, under separate cover,
several suggestions and steps that might be taken to pre
vent any future tragedy of this importance. Some of these
suggestions require new planning; others are suggestions
(of) already active policies but need reinforcement.
“Your committee believes it has discharged its duties
outlined by you but stands ready to continue or provide
you with any further information you may require or re
quest.”
The report was signed by Mrs. Camp and the other two
committee members. Ira Pollard Jr. and Dr. Herman E.
Spivey.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The committee recommended better “control (of)
.... I ~
-*~-*mmhhiBBBBBBH^
M ' ?¥ Sleep
: Nytol BP Sominex Bl^^H
72 TABIFTS
— mi ■■■■■!
Well-Knoum Products
Several well-known sedatives contain a ing shown is just a few of the products
possible cancer-inducing ingredient, ac- which contain the chemical.
cording to the government. The sampl-
For Flood Project
No DOT Financial Help
Forthcoming For Bridges
The City of Summerville in re
cent days has learned the Georgia
Department of Transportation
will be unable to foot the bill for
bridge modifications in connec
tion with the yet-to-be-approved
Town Branch flood-control pro
ject.
City officials previously were
hopeful state aid could be secured
for the work necessary at four
bridges which must be replaced or
modified if the city goes ahead
with the flood project.
Mayor Sewell Cash and Coun
cilman Dennis Cox recently
returned from a meeting in Atlan
ta with DOT representatives and
engineers of the U. S. Army
Corps of Engineers, the designers
of the proposed project. While the
meeting was “productive,” accor
ding to the mayor, he and Cox
learned the depressing news that
the DOT has already earmarked
all of its available funds for
bridge projects and will be unable
to participate in the funding of
the local bridge work.
The cost of the entire pro
ject—which the Corps estimates
would run the City
s2l9,ooo—could be significantly
reduced if non-local sources could
be found to underwrite portions
of the preparation work the city
would be responsible for under
the plans if approved.
The bridge work, the mayor
said, “very possibly could be the
biggest expenditure. We’re hop
ing that after the design is finaliz
ed there could be modifications
thrt would reduce the cost.” In
Some Pharmacists Taking
Questioned Drug Off Shelves
other words, he said that original
Corps plans might be able to be
scaled down in order to reduce the
costs involved.
Other sources might be
available for funding of the bridge
work, too, Cash said. “We’re not
going to give up,” the mayor vow-
Highway Widening To Be
Topic Os DOT Hearing
Local residents, in the near
future, will get a chance to air
their opinions concerning the pro
posed widening of U. S. 27 north
of downtown Summerville.
Mayor Sewell Cash said this
week he had recently spoken with
a Georgia Department of
Transportation official who said
the DOT plans to hold a public
meeting on the project” within 60
days.”
Last year, DOT plans to widen
much of North Commerce Street
to Trion surfaced, which drew
some criticism from some local
merchants who fear needed park
ing space could be eaten up by the
project. The DOT says the pro
ject would help relieve traffic con
gestion between downtown Sum
merville and Trion.
But according to Mayor Cash,
if local residents don’t want the
road widened, the DOT has said it
visitors in the hospital. It was apparent that a great deal
of criticism may have occurred, certainly could have oc
curred. because of (a) misunderstanding of events heard
and seen. Such events often are totally misunderstood and
then serve as a constant source of ‘gossip.’ ”
Another recommendation celled for "in-service train
ing (of employees) in medical ethics and legal responsibili
ty in medical management and treatment of patients.”
“As professionals, all employees of the hospital have
the responsibility to avoid any communication concerning
a patient’s illness and treatment, except to those im
mediately involved in the patient’s case," the recommen
dation continued.
The panel recommended that the family room always
be available and used, and that visiting hours be changed
to allow longer visiting privileges.
The recommendations further call for nursing stations
to be enclosed to isolate work areas from public areas, and
that patient information cards be made available in all
rooms.
The panel said that hospital employees should be
aware of and practice hospital policies, and that “as com
pletely as is humanly possible complete documentation of
all patient care should be incorporated into the patient’s
chart.”
Finally, a program to bring in a cross section of the
county’s population to inspect the hospital periodically, as
has been discussed in the past by the authority, was
recommended for “immediate implementation.”
Mrs. Camp, who headed the committee, said she was
satisfied with the panel’s findings. “We couldn’t find a
thing (to support the allegations),” she said, “in reports or
from employees on anything they (the family) claimed. I
feel it was just a misunderstanding.”
“I was well pleased with the way it went,” she said. “I
was real glad the family came to us, that it came up,
because this kind of thing keeps us on our toes. I think
anyone with criticism of the hospital should feel free to
come and talk with the authority about it so that we can
look into it.”
PRICE 20<
ed. “We plan to exhaust every
source of funds for this work.
“We originally thought we'd
be going in and completely redo
ing each bridge,” he said. "If we
can alter the plan and make the
bridge work less radical, it would
be a step towards going forward
with it (the entire project).”
will drop the project.
“They won't force it down our
throats,” Mayor Cash said Tues
day. "There are a lot of com
munities that do want the DOT to
work on road improvements and
if Summerville doesn’t want the
road widened, the DOT will go
somewhere where improvements
are wanted."
No date has been set for the
meeting, he said, although a DOT
spokesman said it will be an
nounced soon and the proposed
plan will be unveiled then.