07/28/08 Greenwich Time News Links For Monday

Nathaniel Witherell resident Edith McHugh gets her blood pressure taken by Janet Fletcher. Fletcher has been a nurse there for 23 years.
(Bob Luckey Jr./ GreenwichTime photo)

Staff retention at Witherell surpasses average

By Meredith Blake Staff writer

Each day Bertha Hertz, 90, is cared for by the same three nurses at The Nathaniel Witherell nursing home.

And each of them, Debra Wortman, Janet Fletcher, and Hyacinth Rankine, have worked at the Witherell for more than 20 years.

"It gives me comfort to know that they will always be there," she said. "There's a continuity and that's an important thing."

It is also rare, according to Toni Fatone, executive vice president of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities in East Hartford. While the town-owned facility has a 7 percent annual staff turnover rate, the average for nursing homes in Connecticut is 43 percent a year, according to the Washington, D.C.-based American Health Care Association.

"That is incredibly low," said Fatone.

There is a huge problem keeping and retaining nursing staff across the state and in the nation, Fatone said.

The high staff turnover rates are likely due to salary considerations and the atmosphere in the workplace, according to Deborah Chernoff, communications director for the New England Health Care Union 1199 in Hartford....

Mother-daughter team fish trash out of creek

Kirsten Aubert's kayak is starting to resemble a trash barge. An avid oarswoman who grew up on the banks of the Longmeadow Creek in Old Greenwich, Aubert is spending part of her visit home to her parents on garbage patrol in the Long Island Sound salt water tributary.

Push on for green Greenwich

With just over 1 percent of Greenwich households signed up for a state program to promote clean and sustainable energy, town officials are preparing to bolster efforts to promote it with the public.

Winklevoss twins preparing for

Like most twin brothers, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss travel in the same circles. The 26-year-old Greenwich natives each attended Greenwich Country Day School, Brunswick School and Harvard University, where they excelled academically and athletically.

ALSO:

07/26/08 Winklevoss twins hope to form successful pair in Beijing

07/14/08 Greenwich Olympians



Please also see:

For What It's Worth

A New low in euphanism

Greenwich Time refers today to "anti-prohibitionists" who used to run booze up my creek and stash it at what is now Dot McCullough's boat house. Didn't we ...

=================================================
Please send your comments to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com