Reports on Guns

The misleading news reports in The Sun and the malicious cartoons by Kal, Mike Smith and Mike Lane gave your readers the erroneous impression that the only reason a majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted against the president's crime bill the first time was the ban on assault weapons.

This was not true. There were many provisions in the bill which were found to be unacceptable. As appears in your Aug. 22 edition, the bill passed the House only after a number of appropriate amendments were made strengthening its anti-crime provisions while retaining the ban on assault weapons.

Hopefully from this experience, President Clinton (our most partisan president of this century) has learned that in order to get things done, you must work with both parties and not try to ram things though the Congress relying on the Democratic Party majority without giving an opportunity to the Republicans to have any input.

!Evan Alevizatos Chriss

Baltimore

Nursing's Future

On Aug. 7, The Sun carried an article about the changing role of nursing in Maryland hospitals. It's true hospitals and nursing roles are changing rapidly. In the last several years, the number of patients being admitted to hospitals has dropped dramatically, as has the number of days patients are staying in the hospital.

In response, hospitals are downsizing inpatient care units. At the same time, they are providing more outpatient care and working to broaden their traditional acute care role to include primary and preventive care. Nurses are playing a fundamental role in this transition.

Staffing in hospitals is evolving as a result of these changes. The need to reduce or close units is a response to the smaller number of patients staying overnight in hospitals. The changes also are the result of efforts to give nurses more autonomy, and to develop more patient-focused care models.

Changes include efforts to identify those patient care functions which others could do, in order to free nurses to devote their time to clinical activities that demand their unique skills and judgment.

Nurses manage a range of activities, providing treatments and other care, while delegating tasks of routine daily living and paperwork, which don't require nursing knowledge. Such an approach enhances care, increases individual job satisfaction and ultimately saves money.

This process has been a slow, deliberate one which has been scrutinized and reviewed thoroughly to ensure that quality of care is not compromised.

Individual hospitals continually monitor the quality of care provided. Numerous public and private accreditation organizations provide additional scrutiny. Also, hospitals have worked closely with the Maryland Board of Nursing to assure safe delegation of nursing duties.

As noted in your article, the board has issued revised regulations providing nurses with more latitude in decisions to delegate routine tasks. Delegated care is always performed under the supervision of a licensed nurse.

The future of health care delivery is evolving, with or without congressional action. The goal is to find new ways to provide better care for Marylanders, while delivering that care more cost effectively. That means additional changes for hospitals and for the critical role of nursing.

Maryland hospitals are committed to enhancing the quality of care they provide. Maintaining that quality remains at the center of efforts to restructure health care for the 21st century.

Catherine Crowley

Lutherville

The writer, a registered nurse, is assistant vice president of the Maryland Hospital Association's Center for Nursing and Allied Health Careers.

Failed Barriers

My family and I are African-Americans who have lived in Guilford for almost 20 years. We are appalled and offended by the proposed plan for limiting traffic in the neighborhood.

Throughout history, barriers have not worked. The Great Wall of China, moats in the Middle Ages and, more recently, the Berlin Wall are examples of how barriers have not been successful in limiting access.

Our family chose to live in the city. We work to make it a better place to live. We did not choose to live isolated from all the uniqueness that urban living provides.

Certainly we are challenged to find solutions to the problems of our community. I have written to Mayor Kurt Schmoke to ask him to consider appointing a panel to recommend viable solutions to crime, and to encourage the Guilford Association to work with other neighborhoods to solve mutual problems.

Most importantly, I ask that barriers not be erected.

I am confident that our community has all the resources and talent necessary to meet the challenges we face as we enter the 21st century.

#Nannette Kindle Mitchell

Baltimore

Horton's Pollution

Irony of ironies, it turns out that your in-house defender of the bay and promoter of environmentally correct causes and candidates, Tom Horton, has been a first-class polluter of the bay himself for years.

To his credit, in illuminating the terribly polluting effects of outboard motoring in his Aug. 20 column, he owned up to being an "outboard motor's devotee" since childhood and one who has not only operated outboards all the way up to 200 HP during this period, but also one who racked up nearly 20,000 miles in outboards in a 3-year period alone.

It's understandable that he finds himself "dismayed" by the Environmental Protection Agency's recent findings that these two-stroke engines produce as much pollution in about 20 miles as a car driven 800 miles, or that about a quarter of the oil used in these engines is dumped directly into the water as exhaust, but how could he, an environmentalist, have missed the oil slicks, smoke and other obvious polluting effects all these years unless he simply chose to ignore them in blind pursuit of recreation and the good life?

As a regular reader of Mr. Horton's columns, I found this piece to be one of his most informative, revealing and gutsy to date.

Hopefully, now that he recognizes that he and his fellow outboard boaters may be a big part of the bay's problems, he'll be a bit less preachy to those who have more than simply a recreational stake in the future evolution of environmental policy and regulation.

Dick Fairbanks

Baltimore

Three Tried to Flout Law

This is in response to Marcia Myers' article "3 languish in jail awaiting INS action" (Aug. 26). This article contains several glaring inaccuracies.

As a representative of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the person interviewed for this article, I feel compelled to inform the public of the facts in this case.

First and foremost, the headline is extremely misleading. This office is not sitting idle while these men "languish" in jail.

After destroying the documents they used to board an aircraft destined to the U.S., these men mingled with the thousands of other passengers arriving at JFK Airport in New York.

When questioned by the immigration inspector, the men refused to reveal their identities, port of embarkation and nationalities.

All three claimed political asylum, received a full hearing, and were ordered deported from the U.S. All due process rights were accorded them from the U.S. They were in no way "lost on the INS radar screen."

We were recently informed by an official of the government of India that he will attempt to facilitate the verification of the claimed identities, so that they can issue the requested travel documents.

These individuals did not merely "come to the attention of a federal judge," but rather filed a petition in federal district court attempting to secure their release from custody prior to deportation from the U.S. It is obvious they have a lot to gain by exercising this legal right.

I explained to the reporter that if individuals were able to gain entry into this country by destroying their travel documents and refusing to disclose their identities, we would lose total control of our borders.

It would also be unfair to the millions of people who comply with the law by pursuing immigrant visas in the manner legislated by Congress.

At no time did I say that two years in jail is a small price to pay to immigrate.

In closing, I must admit that an unexpected bonus of your article has been the positive support received from the public for our position in this case.

Don Crocetti

Baltimore

The writer is deputy director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Baltimore office.