Where is the shortage??

Nurses General Nursing

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I have been crawling around through the forums for a while now even before I opened up my account and every now and then someone will mention something about a " nursing shortage". I would very much like to know where this is happening specifically what state. There are also "reports" that I hear about stating that certain parts of the country are in dire need of adequate staffing, I would very much appreciate if you could send me a link to these "reports" so I can read for my self where the data is coming from.

As far as I know out here in California we have a nursing excess of RN new grads being produced every year from multiple CSU and CC. I have talked to a few new grads and they tell me this "shortage" doesn't exist. I was told they had applied to hospitals, LTC, and SNF. The only ones I know that got jobs after getting their RN license are the ones who got into their hospital system before they got into the program. CHW up north is Unionized so they got a job working as an operator making announcements, not much on pay but got them into the system. 2 years later they graduated RN and got a job almost immediately because they had access to all the internal position openings. From my understanding they also had two years of time in service at the hospital which gave them seniority, one of those union clauses from what i was told.

It's pretty slim pickins here in New Mexico..

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I am having a very hard time believing there is a shortage of nurses(people) There is a shortage of jobs(things)

All these fiscal, corporate america people(HR depts mainly) who keep feeding the Department of Labor these statisics on Nursing better cough up some TRUTHFUL numbers and the Dept of Labor needs to make them prove their numbers. Where are the stats on all the new grads not working as nurses? Where are the stats on all the older experienced nurses who are out of a NURSING position? And every nursing level of experience in between not working a nursing position? A licensed nurse working at a Home Improvement store as a cashier,stockperson or office help, because there are no "nursing" jobs is not working as a nurse. Why would that nurse be included in stats on working 'nursing' employment.? Who is trying to pull the wool over whose eyes? We don't know what the REAL outlook for nursing is, we don't know if or when or will there be a nursing shortage because we have had so many lies, falsification of labor statisics and smoke screens blown our way by the corportate world of Healthcare(CEO's, the HR depts, the Budgeting and Finance depots)

The facts and condition of nursing had been fueled by such dysfunctional information by those who control the purse strings for quite a few years that it's only those who control the purse strings know what the actual situation is AND they AIN'T telling us. Why- because it threatens their big personal bank accounts.

I believe we are being frightened into thinking healthcare reform will be the ruination of the healthcare industry. Who stands the most to loose if the government is in healthcare? That multimillion dollar CEO! With a government health care plan- he/she will be the first to go and replaced by someone who will run a hospital at a more reasonable salary- With the multi million dollar CEO gone, there will be money for opening nursing positions. These hospitals will still have to comply with Medicare standards of care or risk loosing medicare/medicaid (CMS)funding/reinbursement- Hospital aquired infections- catheter related UTI's, central line sepsis, decubiti, These hospitals will not be able to do that in the dangerous short staffing ratios they have going on right now. The ratios are short to support the CEO and his family in the manner they feel they are entitlled to! Talk about an entitlement program. The VA has some very impresive healthcare programs- their initiatives on MRSA, and their care of traumatic brain injury(notjust mortor fire injuries, happens on our streets every day- MVA's,gunshot wounds: code blues during simple OR's, drug overdoses) The government healthcare facilities have the EHR. A soldier injured in Iraq seeks care in a field hospital in Iraq, his visit is documentated and saved, 2 yrs later, that soldier goes to a VA hospital in the US- his provider can lookup on thier computer why he went to the field hospital that day, what time.what his vital signs were, what his labs were, what his xray showed, what the provider's impression/ progress note said and what treatment was given. They don't fax charts, fill out written requests, make phone calls. The money that is rat holed by these CEO's is outragous- money that could be spent on patient care!!

The Dept of Labor is fed Bull**** from the S***spinners. The Healthcare System SpinDoctors.

Nursing Shortage - Who knows?? As for us baby boomers retiring. What the H*** does anyone think will happen to social security and medicare if all of us baby boomers(44 million) retire now at 50-65yrs old.(forced to retire because of the lack of jobs avail to us because that is were it stands now) Now come on- where's the common sence. Who is manipulating the job market!!! An the end result- the economy. How long are we going to keep silent. Can we afford to keep silent and let these CEO';s keep on going?

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In the world of optimum staffing, yes there is a nursing shortage.

But the administration is ruled by the bottom line. They seem to think that stretching current nurses thin with some lawsuits here and some fatalities there is more cost effective than having a few more nurses on the unit and potentially reducing mortality rates.

It also REALLY doesn't help that nursing schools are popping up like crazy. In turn they pop out a lot more graduates. Hospitals are closing, decreasing total availability of jobs.

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.

There is no nursing shortage...there never was a nursing shortage...there never will be a nursing shortage. There are hundreds of thousands of nurses out there. What there was and will be again is a shortage of nurses willing to stay at the bedside and eat the crap that is dealt to them on a daily basis.

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Corporate lobbying to import non-American nurses so they can abuse them for lower pay and they won't say much or else risk termination and deportation since their work visa would no longer be valid.

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Specializes in Step-Down.

When is the rally I am ready to picket this!!

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

There are multiple threads on this. I will re-iterate what was said earlier; There never was a shortage. There used to be a lack of nurses willing to work for the conditions offered. Due to the usual demographic of nursing, many were moms who chose to stay home rather than work in difficult circumstances. Suddenly in many instances the primary income in the family lost their job and the stay at home mom decides those circumstances aren't so bad after all. Great!! Except now all the new grads being churned out that just used to just barely stem the tide of people quickly leaving nursing started seeing their jobs filled by these other nurses (who had experience already).

To make it worse many recently unemployed people decided they would go into nursing because it was such a needy area (the recession hit nursing a little later than many other professions).

As an employer would you rather fill your full time positions with new grads who typically need 6 months intense orientation or give those full-time positions to experienced nurses some of whom are already in your system as PRN employees?

In my area of the country we did not get hit as hard as some like CA or the many parts of the Northeast. What we did see was than instead of hiring 80-90% new grads, we were seeing 10-25% new grads and the other new hires all had experience. I hear our hospital gets new grad applications from around the country.

I follow another thread about this and though it is long it may be worth your while to look through it, especially the last few pages that have more up to date information (I think the thread is now >1yr old).

https://allnurses.com/first-year-after/any-hospital-hiring-421018.html

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Specializes in ED, Telemetry,Hospice, ICU, Supervisor.

Does anyone know exactly how people or news organizations for that matter come to the conclusion that there is a "nursing shortage"? Seriously I would love to read how they go the numbers on this like a survey, or how they conducted this research, demographics, if anyone can send me a link to the hard data I would greatly appreciate it.

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