Veteran Center workers protest low pay, staff shortages

(Oklahoma City-AP) -- Approximately two dozen employees of Oklahoma veterans centers today presented Governor Keating with petitions that protest low pay and staffing shortages.

Nurse's aide Kathy Talkington says staffing shortages have created serious health care problems at veterans' centers around the state.

Talkington says nurse's aides are overworked and exhausted from working long hours. She says staffing shortages have prevented the aides from meeting certain standards for long-term patients, including turning them over in their beds at certain intervals.

Talkington says veterans are not getting the quality of care they need, and that the inability of workers to provide the care insults the workers' pride.

Talkington presented the petitions signed by 450 veterans center workers to a liaison for Keating.