Southern Nurses Better Off Than The Rest? - Page 4

This was one of features on TV news tonight in Little Rock, AR. I'll attempt a cut and paste the feature.

Nursing Shortage in Arkansas Reaching Critical Stage
Posted - July 08, 2002 4:51pm Reporter: Kerri Jackson Posted By: Tony Tabor
http://www.katv.com/showstory.hrb?f=n&s=48622&f1=loc

New Rules May Mean Better Patient Care at Hospitals


Statewide - The nursing shortage in Arkansas reaching a critical stage. By the year 2010, it will take at least 30,000 new nurses entering the medical field in Arkansas to fix the problem. But at the same time, other states are recruiting Arkansas nurses with better pay and bonuses. Monday the Legislative Nursing Commission met to find some solutions. Kerri Jackson has more on what the committee recommends.

They are recommending both short-term and long-term solutions. They say the nursing shortage is complex problem with no simple solution. But most require more money.

They say if the problem is not addressed, patients will have problems from a harder time scheduling elective surgery, to more emergency room diversions because there are not enough nurses to take care of them. In the short-term, the committee recommends offering higher salaries to nurses and incentive programs to keep Arkansas nurses in the state and lure nurses from other states. Long-term, more people have to go to nursing school. Which means more people have to become nursing teachers. Right now, qualified professors have to take a pay cut to become an educator. That's one area many feel where the legislature can have direct influence.

(Barbara Williams/UCA Nursing Dept. Chair) "I think the legislators have got to look at the salary of the nursing faculty. There's got to be something to encourage the schools, either an incentive to encourage the colleges and universities to raise the salaries. Something's got to be done in that area."

(Sen. Brenda Gullet/(D) Pine Bluff) "We feel that a lot of communities do not realize what impact this is going to have on their local hospital."

The committee is putting together a final report to give to the full legislature this fall.

Copyright 2002 KATV, LLC


Edited post for correct url and pertinent topic. Karen

Hi jt...I hear you make big nursing bucks where you work, so I have tracked you down to ask you what state you live in and where you work that pays nurses top dollar for their expertise? Feel free to send me a "PM" so as to keep your place of employment top secret...must do that around here since we have a "lurker" without a life ready to report whatever she thinks is not kosherly told. Thanks!

Hey Ya'll. Lived & worked in Mississippi. DON's treat you like dirt. Up to 9-10 pts per nurse. Begging & taking GNs fresh from school, turning them loose as soon as 4-6weeks. Been there, done that. North MS schedules 2 on, 2off, q other weekend (they call it built-in OT). Pay sucks, too. DONs & Mgrs call round the clock begging you to work OT, even on other units (thand God for caller ID). Same old stuff, people trying to make it sound good, when they don't even work the floors.

Lafayette Louisiana here and we have a definate shortage here. Our managers cannot hire people because there are no applicants to be had. We are losing tons of people to agency and traveling and from what i can tell there has been zero attempt to retain nurses. Heck when I let my manager know of my intention to move on to greener pastures I was never even asked to stay.

3 more weeks left in this state and then on to the great state of texas!!!!!!!

Cheerfuldoer:

If you don't want to live in NY, can come to Philly burb. Can find nice homes around $120,000 with quality Blue Ribbon schools.


Nurses at Crozer ratify contract---Look what they $$$ won
http://allnurses.com/forums/showthre...threadid=18964

......With an average base salary of $54,000, Crozer nurses had been seeking a limit to the number of patients assigned to them per shift. The union proposed reducing to 5-to-1 the ratio of patients to nurses in medical and surgical units and 2-to-1 in critical care.

Wages for nurses with one year of experience begin at $25 per hour and increase to $37.54 per hour for nurses at the top of the wage scale. In two years, the range will be $27.22 to $41.38 per hour.......

JT I'm in the same state as you, just on the "other" coast. Didn't say there wasn't a shortage in the rest of the state. Just no shortage here. Why do people work for such low wages? People , for reasons unbeknownst to me are very reluctant to leave this hell hole. I am trappped here because my wife won't move. Don't know why othres stay. Residents that are here for school say they are leaving the day after they Graduate. People who do leave only come back for one reason, their elder family members are sick and they need to be with them. Knowbody move to here because they want too, 'cept maybe some foreigners who don't know better

Honest & for real, ya'll, whoever those folks were who claimed that there isn't a nursing shortage was telling a BIG story (a story is the southern term for a lie)

In my 8 years as a nurse, I've never seen a time when nurses weren't in high demand! As for the shortage, My sister-in-law & I saw it coming 4 years ago. I get postcards from hospitals in Nashville & from agencies frequently. We have a hospital in my area that offers $4,000 sign-on bonuses for their non-ICU staff & $5,000 for their ICU staff.

One of the reasons I left the ICU position I held in an area hospital was mandatory OT...it was built into the schedule. It is a common practice in my part of Tennessee. Part of why I'm not floor nursing on a full-time basis as well.

No matter what those administrators said, there is a shortage.