The President of the West Virginia Nursing Association says nurses want to be an integral part of the health care reform solutions being touted in Washington DC.
Beth Baldwin was recently among a group of nurses that voiced their concerns in a meeting at the White House with President Obama on the subject. Speaking on MetroNews Talkline, Baldwin said health care reform must be a sweeping change in order to be effective.
"You can't wait to do one little thing at a time and have nothing work," said Baldwin. "You really need to make a big approach and make big changes or we're all going to end up in trouble."
Baldwin says among those sweeping changes needs to be improved access to primary care. She says by creating a climate where primary care doctors can open an office on every street, people would be much more responsive to preventative care.
"If we have more access to primary care in every community and on every street corner you can walk in and see a primary care provider, people are more likely to watch their blood pressures and have their blood sugar checked, receive their vaccines, and prevent illness," she said.
Baldwin works as a nurse practitioner, a profession that is presently handcuffed from much of the work in the healthcare arena that is sorely lacking in rural parts of West Virginia. She says they've urged the Obama Administration to push for relaxing the restrictions on the type of work they can do, so as to provide better access in those rural communities.
"Nurse practitioners are extensively trained in delivering primary care,” said Baldwin. "They tend to work in their hometown areas, so expanding primary care to allow nurse practitioners to operate in these rural areas would alleviate a lot of that problem."
