Re: your article, “Los Robles Hospital plans layoffs,” published April 23 in The Star:

Los Robles Hospital & Medical Centers’s layoff plans are meant to help cut costs. This is shortsighted because the targeted people are vital to the nursing team. Registered nursing is a physically, emotionally and mentally draining job that is becoming increasingly difficult due to hospital cutbacks and federal regulations. If hospitals continue to cut back, then patients will be cheated of the skilled care they provide.

Certified nursing assistants are an integral part of the nursing team. A good CNA may determine whether the patient will have a good or bad day. The multiple things CNAs assist with include answering call lights, helping ambulatory and bedridden patients with toileting, passing meal trays, feeding patients who cannot feed themselves, keeping confused patients safe, taking vital signs they report to the register nurse, as well as changing beds, bathing patients, helping with dressing changes and running errands.

Unit secretaries are the heart of the whole unit. They are the first person the doctors and visitors turn to for information.

They are constantly answering phone calls from doctors, families and friends regarding patients. Every time a doctor sees a patient, the doctor writes orders regarding the patient’s care. It is the unit secretary who takes the orders, puts them into the computer, and informs the nurse if an order requires immediate action.

The lift team at has been a tremendous help. Who knows how many backs they have saved. The lift team helps turn bedridden patients and helps patients with balance problems into chairs. They respond to emergency calls for patients who have fallen or become combative.

What do the registered nurses do? All of the above as necessary. But, the important fact is these helpers allow the nurse to do the vital aspects of nursing, to physically see and touch each patient to assess their physical status, to read their charts, check test results, pass out medications, hear complaints, assure that doctor’s orders are being implemented and be aware if anything is amiss. It is the nurse whose knows your condition and keeps your doctor aware of your status. Making the job more difficult for RN’s and less helpful to patients will not improve either health care or the nursing shortage.

— Lucille B. Chaney, R.N., Newbury Park