Amid Nation's Recession, More Than 200,000 Nursing Jobs Go Unfilled

[ozoneranger]

Amid Nation's Recession, More Than 200,000 Nursing Jobs Go Unfilled

Monday, March 09, 2009

WASHINGTON- The U.S. healthcare system is pinched by a persistent nursing shortage that threatens the quality of patient care even as tens of thousands of people are turned away from nursing schools, according to experts.

The shortage has drawn the attention of President Barack Obama. During a White House meeting on Thursday to promote his promised healthcare system overhaul, Obama expressed alarm over the notion that the United States might have to import trained foreign nurses because so many U.S. nursing jobs are unfilled.

Democratic U.S. Representative Lois Capps, a former school nurse, said meaningful healthcare overhaul cannot occur without fixing the nursing shortage. "Nurses deliver healthcare," Capps said in a telephone interview.

An estimated 116,000 registered nurse positions are unfilled at U.S. hospitals and nearly 100,000 jobs go vacant in nursing homes, experts said.

The shortage is expected to worsen in coming years as the 78 million people in the post-World War Two baby boom generation begin to hit retirement age. An aging population requires more care for chronic illnesses and at nursing homes.

"The nursing shortage is not driven by a lack of interest in nursing careers. The bottleneck is at the schools of nursing because there's not a large enough pool of faculty," Robert Rosseter of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing said in a telephone interview.

Nursing colleges have been unable to expand enrollment levels to meet the rising demand, and some U.S. lawmakers blame years of weak federal financial help for the schools.

Almost 50,000 qualified applicants to professional nursing programs were turned away in 2008, including nearly 6,000 people seeking to earn master's and doctoral degrees, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing said.

Pay Differences

One reason for the faculty squeeze is that a nurse with a graduate degree needed to teach can earn more as a practicing nurse, about $82,000, than teaching, about $68,000.

Obama called nurses "the front lines of the healthcare system," adding: "They don't get paid very well. Their working conditions aren't as good as they should be."

The economic stimulus bill Obama signed last month included $500 million to address shortages of health workers. About $100 million of this could go to tackling the nursing shortage. There are about 2.5 million working U.S. registered nurses.

Separately, Senator Dick Durbin and Representative Nita Lowey, both Democrats, have introduced a measure to increase federal grants to help nursing colleges.

Peter Buerhaus, a nursing work force expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said the nursing shortage is a "quality and safety" issue. Hospital staffs may be stretched thin due to unfilled nursing jobs, raising the risk of medical errors, safety lapses and delays in care, he said.

A study by Buerhaus showed that 6,700 patient deaths and 4 million days of hospital care could be averted annually by increasing the number of nurses. "Nurses are the glue holding the system together," Buerhaus said.

Addressing the nursing shortage is important in the context of healthcare reform, Buerhaus added. Future shortages could drive up nurse wages, adding costs to the system, he said.

And if the health changes championed by Obama raise the number of Americans with access to medical care, more nurses will be needed to help accommodate them, Buerhaus said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506887,00.html

Read through these posts & you'll see why there's such a shortage.

[noc4senuf]

Since I posted earlier, I have now been told that those of us in management will be taking a 5% pay cut effective immediately. The only ones not affected at this time are the union workers and the staff nurses. But, the funny thing about it is I have a FT PM position for an RN that I just posted and in the 1st day had 3 very well qualified applicants. This never happens as I usually can only get LPN's for LTC.

[Bugaloo]

I'm still in nursing school, so maybe I'm mistaken, but from what I've seen and gathered from talking to family members and friends that are nurses, I think there is a shortage. The reason it might not seem that way is two-fold. One, the economy sucks right now so very few places, including hospitals, are hiring anyone. Two, even in good times, hospitals rarely have the number of nurses they should have because profit is generally more important than patient care of staff (especially nursing staff) satisfaction. Nurses make up a huge proportion of a hospital's budget (often the largest single cost) and so hospitals see cutting nursing staff or not hiring to keep it low as an effective way to save money. Of course, this is all a result of letting bureaucrats who know nothing about, nor care about patient care run our hospitals. Nursing is such a huge profession, hopefully someday enough of us will be part of our professional organizations to truly use our numbers to bring about the changes we all know are needed. Again, I'm just a student, so maybe I'm way off mark...

No, You are NOT off mark. But the thing is, there is not a NURSING shortage. There is a SHORTAGE of nurses that are willing to work under the conditions that have been created for us. There is also an overabundance of CEOS/Admin who feel that it is okay to cut costs where they see fit. Very seldom do you see someone in administration lose their job or work like a dog. But nurses, as someone else mentioned, are actually seen as "budget breakers" because they are a great expense. But the thing is.....if nurses actually said, "Ok, We are done. We aren't taking this anymore", and walked out....there would be sheer panic from the Big Dogs. Okay, it is a pipe dream. We can't actually do that, because they would call and report each and every one of us to State Board of Nursing. They have us in a bind, and they know it.

[nicurn001]

But the thing is.....if nurses actually said, "Ok, We are done. We aren't taking this anymore", and walked out....there would be sheer panic from the Big Dogs. Okay, it is a pipe dream. We can't actually do that, because they would call and report each and every one of us to State Board of Nursing. They have us in a bind, and they know it.

This can be done ( not necessary to walk out ) . In those area's of the country where nurses are fighting to get Ratio laws implemented , they are trying to produce an enviroment of safe practice , which will attract nurses back to the floors .

"They" do not have us in a bind , we impose it on ourselves , by doing nothing to encourage minimum staffing levels being set and met .