[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 57 (Thursday, May 11, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H2555-H2556]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        SUPPORTING THE GOALS AND IDEALS OF NATIONAL NURSES WEEK

  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
turn for 5 minutes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Georgia is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of America's nurses, and 
I want to bring my colleagues' attention to the fact that this is 
National Nurses Week.
  As a physician for nearly 30 years, I certainly know the importance 
of nurses to our Nation's health care system, and I can say without 
hesitation that nurses are the glue that holds our hospitals and our 
health care system together. They are literally on the front lines of 
health care, and they are the faces our patients see day in and day 
out.
  Our Nation is facing a critical shortage in the nursing profession, 
Mr. Speaker. As Americans grow older and live longer, our health care 
system will be stretched even further to accommodate new demands. And 
in order for us to continue to deliver high-quality health care in this 
country, we will need increasing numbers of health care providers and 
especially registered nurses.
  According to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor 
Statistics published in February of 2004, more than one million new and 
replacement nurses will be needed by the year 2012.

[[Page H2556]]

  The importance of quality and trusted nurses is best illustrated by 
my telling you about two of them who are particularly special in my 
life. When I was a practicing OB-GYN physician in Marietta, Georgia, 
Lynn Olmstead was a wonderfully gifted nurse who worked with me for 20 
loyal and dedicated years.
  Lynn is a graduate of Michigan State University, a Spartan, as is her 
husband, Ken. She had worked in labor and delivery at Wellstar 
Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Georgia, in my district for 10 years; 
and I had an opportunity to see her and her compassion and working with 
patients in the wee hours of the morning and was very, very fortunate 
that she agreed to come and work in my office and where she spent the 
next 20 years, as I said, working so compassionately with patients and 
helping me, in fact, make right decisions a lot of the times. And I 
remain dedicated and grateful to Lynn for that service that she gave to 
me and our patients at Marietta OB-GYN Affiliates.
  The other nurse, Mr. Speaker, is my daughter-in-law, Emily House 
Gingrey. Emily is a graduate of the University of Georgia. She 
recently, after making a decision a couple or 3 years ago to go back to 
school and get her registered nursing degree from Georgia Baptist 
School of Nursing, now works at the Northside Hospital in Atlanta in 
the neonatal intensive care unit, taking care of the most fragile, not 
just premature babies, but what we know as immature babies, those less 
than 2,500 grams.
  And I see Emily as she is beginning her career in that most important 
area of neonatal intensive care, providing life, really, to these very 
fragile babies that might possibly not make it in this world without 
the dedication of young nurses like Emily House Gingrey, the wife of my 
son, Billy.
  So it is with a great deal of pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to take just 
these few minutes this evening to pay tribute to all nurses, and I rise 
today to applaud the profession of nursing and encourage young 
Americans to consider this noble work as a future career.

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