School of Nursing Scrapbook 1979

Health care bidding Editor: The County Board of su– pervisors must be held accountable . to their constituency, the people of San Diego for their rejection of the bidding to provide Home Health Care. Seven agencies bid. The three low– est bidders were National Home Care; Homemaker-Upjohn; and Al– lied Community Services-Visiting Nurse Homemaker Service, which js identified as the second lowest bid– der and the agency providing the highest quality of care of all bidders. The Board of Supervisors rejected this bid by an arbitrary action of two supervisors, Brown and Taylor, who indicated they prefer profit malting agencies in the health care industry. The feeble reasons they offer are that Homemaker-Upjohn's has more financial backing and pay taxes. Why should health care cost more when the same quality can be pro– vided to the taxpayer at less cost? Homemaker-Upjohn is not a local agency. It is national in scope. Allied Community Services, -a San Diego organization, has been more than satisfactorily serving our citizens for six years while the Visiting Nurse Assn. of San Diego has been render– ing service for more than 50 years. If this agency had been given this contract, the cost of this care to the individual San Diego resident would not increase. Surely local, compe– tent, qualified, cost-effective agen– cies, on a competitive bidding should be given the contract to provide Home Health Services when all data so indicates rather than on the feeble reason that they are not tax genera– tive. The essential issue is quality control and cost control. The County Board of Snpervisors has not acted in an accountable manner in rejecting the bids pre– sented and opening the contract for bid again. -IRENE S. PALMER R.N., Ph.D- 10, I j Dean and professor ' J 9 76 School of Nursing University of San DiegQ