[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 86 (Tuesday, June 25, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1148-E1149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VISITING NURSE ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL NEW 
                                 JERSEY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR.

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 25, 2002

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to 
congratulate the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey as it 
celebrates its 90th Anniversary Year as the region's premier provider 
of community health services, serving more than 100,000 clients each 
year. The organization that is now VNA of Central Jersey began with a 
meeting of volunteers on June 24, 1912 at Brookdale Farm, Geraldine 
Thompson's estate in Lincroft, NJ.
  First known as the Monmouth County Branch of the State Charities Aid 
and Prison Reform Association, the young organization set out to 
improve prison conditions and achieve a more humane approach to public 
assistance. It successfully campaigned for a tuberculosis hospital 
(Allenwood Sanitarium), and was appointed agent for the NJ Tuberculosis 
League.
  From the beginning, the health care needs of women and children were 
a paramount concern. In its first decade, the agency completed a study 
of mentally handicapped children in the public schools; it launched 
child welfare programs and established mobile dental clinics and mobile 
mental hygiene clinics. Public health nurses were added to the social 
work staff, and the agency established a county district health office.
  The name was changed to the Monmouth County Organization for Social 
Service in 1918. However, the agency has always been a voluntary, 
nonprofit organization and is not a branch of county government.
  Accomplishments of the second decade included the addition of three 
satellite health centers and a continuing focus on services for 
children: well-child conferences, nutrition and parenting programs, and 
establishment of a children's shelter.
  The 1930s brought a training program for student nurses, nursery and 
play schools at the Hartshorne Health Center in Belford to assist 
working mothers, and an expansion of services for handicapped children. 
The agency also assisted Fitkin Hospital (now Jersey Shore Medical 
Center) in establishing a social service department.
  During the war years, MCOSS spearheaded a medical-dental plan for 
veterans. In the late 1940s the agency participated in organizing the 
Cancer Society, Heart Association and Cerebral Palsy Treatment Center 
in the county. The agency's program to provide health

[[Page E1149]]

care for migrant workers received national recognition.
  In the following decade, the agency participated in the Salk vaccine 
testing program and gave field training to graduate nursing students 
from Rutgers University and Columbia. The Thrift Shop opened its doors 
in Manasquan in 1960. Also in the 1960s, the agency and the Monmouth 
County Board of Freeholders worked out a plan for countywide bedside 
nursing care.
  The high quality of nursing, the aging of the population, the growing 
costs of hospital care and advances in home care technology led to 
explosive growth in home care services in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1979, 
the agency formally changed its name to MCOSS Nursing Services. In 
1988, service was expanded to Middlesex County through acquisition of 
the Visiting Nurse Association in Middlesex. In an effort to make the 
organization's identity clear in both Middlesex County and Monmouth 
County, the agency's trustees voted in December 1993 to adopt the name 
Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey. (A visiting nurse 
association is a freestanding, community-based, nonprofit organization 
governed by a volunteer board of trustees, providing intermittent care 
in the home and helping to support itself through fund-raising.).
  Significant developments of the 1980s and 1990s included creation of 
VNACJ Community Services, the administrative umbrella for grant-funded 
services and fund-raising programs; the foundation of the hospice 
program; growth of the rehabilitative services department; and 
establishment of primary care centers staffed by nurse practitioners. 
In 1988, the hospice program was certified by Medicare, and now serves 
more than 700 terminally III patients and their families annually.
  From mobile health clinics in the 1920s, services to migrants in the 
1940s, hospice care in the 1980s, primary care in the 1990s, expansion 
of school-based clinics in 2000 to the introduction of advanced home 
care technology in 2001, the venturesome spirit of that early group of 
volunteers continues to infuse an organization which has consistently 
been in the vanguard of community health in this nation.
  As VNA of Central Jersey celebrates its 90th year, it also pays 
tribute to Judith Stanley Coleman on her 25th anniversary as Chairman. 
First as trustee and then as the agency's sixth chairman, Mrs. Coleman 
has been an outstanding leader, advocate and supporter of the 
organization. She has worked tirelessly to ensure that the voluntary 
nonprofit agency continue to honor its commitment to provide care to 
all in need, regardless of their ability to pay.

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