Discussion- Urge Congress to Support HR 5924: Legislation to Address Nursing Shortage

I"m personally against the importation of foreign nurses. This will reduce the bargaining ability of U.S. nurses by bringing in large amounts of foreign workers.

In my opinion we should be recruiting from our native born population, boosting nursing programs in the country, and doing everything else possible to nurture and finance the education aspirations of Americans who wish to be nurses!

For me, the important part of this discussion is about numerical practicality, health care standards, and equity. If it descends into a conversation of keeping out "those dirty, smelly foreigners," then we need to re-examine our motives and our fears.

I just started reading a useful looking book by Mark Berreby called, "Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind" (2005). If any of you have read it, maybe you could comment. It talks about the neuro-psychological basis for flocking together with similarly-feathered birds and, by extension, about racism and exclusion.

Alan

I get a little tired of being accused of being a racist for opposing mass immigration from foreign countries. That's a tired, stale argument in my opinion.

I think it boils down to the fact that the powers that be, rather than making the effort to retain nurses already here with better working conditions, find it more expedient for their bottom line to bring in nurses from impoverished nations.

Please click the link and let senetor hear your voice on HR. 5924 which
light the candle in the dark for foreign nurses! I already did it in my
state. Come on, brothers and sisters, the more the better, ACT now!

http://capwiz.com/sjhs/issues/alert/?alertid=11498866

2nd link (working) : http://www.congress.org/sjhs/issues/...?bill=11498861

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This is our last hope!

It is a good thing it is the last hope because the first hope is quality compassionate and culturally appropriate care for Americans.
The solution is better pay and working conditions for American nurses who are the most devoted in the world, sometimes to a fault. American nurses are not only the best nurses in the world, but deserve to be treated fairly and not threatened with foreign nurses who will work more hours for less pay and do not understand American culture and patients! It is wanted by the hospital associations so the smell should be familiar.
Deflate wages and disempower American nurses is the title of this bill.

You guys are killing me. Nursing has told the American people that there is a nursing shortage. The word "crisis" was actually used. We told people their lives and the lives of their loved ones are in danger. Guess what? Everyone believed us, and why shouldn't they? We are the most trusted profession are we not? So what happened then? Well, since nursing is always shouting "We are a profession!" some assumed that as a profession we would surely be able to come up with a solution...

We didn't.

So here is an opportunity to get more nurses to the bedside and people are saying, "Uggg, foreign nurses will be bad for our wages..." Oops, you see, silly me, I thought it was about the patient. My bad. Where exactly do you guys think all of this money is supposed to come from? What do you think a nurse should be paid? I can't help but think that a nurse right out of a two year program can be making 40-50K a year (without OT), and that is not bad. If that person wants to go for the big bucks there are certainly options such as advanced practice, CRNA, etc. So again what should a nurse make? A dollar more? Ten? Twenty more? Should an ER nurse make more than a med surge nurse or an ICU nurse? You tell me, but first, again, tell me where the money is going to come from? Hospitals that run their budgets like the government does go out of business. Hospitals that remain within their budgets have hard choices to make.

How many big city nursing home nurses are reading this right now? Just who do you think staffs those facilities? Americans can be awfully picky about the jobs they choose. Don't believe me? Just go check out the nursing homes in Chicago, then tell me how they would operate without foreign trained nurses.

I don't think not wanting foreign trained nurses has to do with racism, but most certainly it doesn't have anything to do with compassion caring or some of those other apparent nursing euphemisms.

Ivan