Historic Omaha

Community Chest. But economic conditions
worsened and operating funds became hard
to find. Conversely, demand for services
increased exponentially. Malnutrition was
rampant among adults and children. The
VNA was there to distribute milk and sustain
families by helping the county provide food
allotments and recommend individuals to
WPA projects. In 1934, ten Civil Works
Service nurses were added to help lower the
city’s maternal mortality rate. Only an
outbreak of Scarlet Fever and the subsequent
fear of contamination closed its clinics in
1935. In 1942 the VNA entered into a series
of joint partnerships with the Douglas County
Health Department, parochial schools, rural
areas, the University of Nebraska Hospital
and Creighton University. In the 1950s, VNA
changed its venue from specializedgeneralized
nursing to a generalized form of
nursing where VNA nurses became
responsible for all forms of public health.
They weathered the horrible polio epidemic
of the mid-1950s (498 reported cases in
1952). In 1954 the VNA participated in field
trials of the Salk polio vaccine program,
inoculating over four thousand children.
By the 1960s, the VNA turned its emphasis
to family health, initiating programs such as
Child Health Clinics, Immunizations Clinics,
and the Maternal and Child Health Program.
In the mid-1960s, the VNA’s Children and
Youth Project expanded child-related services,
added staff and clinics, and extended hours
into the evening. The advent of Medicarerelated
programs created a huge demand for
VNA programs among the elderly and lowincome
because of the availability of
reimbursable home health services.
The ’70s were a time of organizational
restructuring. As society’s needs changed, the
VNA terminated some programs, revised
others, and initiated new projects. In 1973 it
expanded its community service role by
assuming administrative responsibility of the
Mobile Meals program for senior citizens. Two
years later, a Health Maintenance Program for
senior citizens with fifteen locations was
established. The same year, follow-up assistance
for parents of children who died from Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome was initiated. In 1975
the VNA again entered the mental health field
by contracting with ENCOMH for case finding
and follow-up services.
With the advent of skyrocketing healthcare
costs and managed healthcare in the ’80s, the
VNA began providing more services to those
dismissed from hospitals, providing aftercare
nursing and rehabilitation. VNA began the
first hospice service in the state in the mid
1980s. The Elder Shelter was established in
1992 to provide temporary housing to elder
abuse victims. Geographically, programs and
services have expanded from the metropolitan
Douglas/Sarpy area to Schuyler, Columbus,
and Norfolk, Nebraska and out-of-state to
Pottawattamie County and Missouri Valley in
Iowa. The Visiting Nurse Association is
located on the World Wide Web at
www.vnam.org.
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