Press enter after choosing selection

Treat VA Matter Seriously

Treat VA Matter Seriously image
Parent Issue
Day
2
Month
September
Year
1976
Copyright
Copyright Protected
Rights Held By
Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
Letter to the Editor
OCR Text

Treat VA Matter Seriously

Editor, The News:

A nurse who has been indicted on a murder charge accuses her hospital chief-of-staff of “trying to force her to confess she killed and poisoned patients.” That is how your account on page one of The News, 29 Aug. 76, begins. But is that what the account describes in fact?

The chief of staff. Dr. Lindenauer, is reported as wanting to speak to her on several occasions. Not surprising. She, for some reason, does not wish to speak to him. He is reported by her as telling her that she ought to do what the FBI tells her to do. Is that the improper “forcing?” He is described as having been agitated by conversations with one who, after lengthy investigation, has been charged (with an accomplice) with multiple counts of premeditated murder. Would we want our chief of staff NOT to be agitated?

The guilt or innocence of the accused will be determined in court, to be sure. Let us, The News included, not make a game of good guys and bad guys of it. Your writer, in reporting all the charges of the accused, colors them vividly with accounts of her religious family, of her helping a sister to go to nursing school, of the furrowing of “the brow of her cherub’s face,” and of “the impish smile which usually lights up her features.” Is this The Ann Arbor News? Is this a serious treatment of news regarding a deeply disturbing murder charge, or a light-hearted human interest feature?

When death and near death was a continuing threat from an unknown murderer in our Veteran's Hospital, The News did not treat the matter carelessly. Nor should you now. The chief of staff, Dr. Lindenauer never did. It is his diligence, his circumspection, and his ability through it all, to return the hospital to a happy and well-regulated condition that should be the focus of our admiration.

Carl Cohen