US Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) wrote this editorial about his co-sponsorship of HR 5924, the Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act. Do you support the bill?
8/11/2008
A prescription for our nursing shortage
By Jim Sensenbrenner
Nurses have always been the friendly faces providing comfort and rehabilitation while we and our loved ones recover in the hospital or healthcare facility. However, over the past decade, the numbers of nurses in the US have been dwindling. According to the American Hospital Association, there are presently over 116,000 vacancies for registered nurses. By 2014, that number is estimated to be 1.2 million. This shortage not only creates a crunch on hospitals and other facilities trying to administer care, but has also contributed to nearly 24% of hospital deaths and injuries.
It is so sad, isn't it? But we have all worked with people with a chip on their shoulder.
And they come from all over the globe, don't they?
Aye, I usually do not get so incensed over one small person but when it involves insulting my fellow nurses who are underpaid and oft not appreciated my ire as an American nurse rises. I too have worked with foreign and domestic and see a clear distinction. I watched my former field of electrical engineering lose hundered of jobs and the pay go into massive decline at the hand of foreign visa receipients who were taking jobs. Much of the work on several systems had to be redone by American engineers on one particular flight system. Thanks for your comments and I, as many American nurses, continue to lobby for better nurse and teacher pay as well as school debt forgiveness the long term solution to our nursing shortage. 700 billion to wall street would have easily sent a lot of bright American recruits to nursing school and enriched and expanded many University programs. Nursing in my mind is a much higher priority.
Specializes in ER and family advanced nursing practice.
Can you not compare these nurses with less aggressive southerners?
The less aggressive nurses I originally spoke of were not from the south, or even from this country. I just used that trait as an example.
Then please explain the above comment. I believe you were implying that southern nurses are "less aggressive" as compared to nurses from New York. You were again making your point that you can determine the negative traits of a person based on geography.
That is why I can have the opinions that I have- because I believe that the traits in my culture are the most desirable.
For the greater offenses- lazy, irritating, non empathetic-
Some will tell you, others will ignore, others defend.
I'm not going to point toward any direction-
BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!
Yes, it is obvious that you think your culture is the most desirable. I believe you have made that quite clear. Most people are likely to be ethnocentric on some level, but you have taken it up a notch or two. I know you are not going to point. People like you usually don't until you get somewhere with others like you, or you can hide safely behind the anonymity of mediums like this. Your angry, hate based rhetoric doesn't bear scrutiny, and you know it. I think it is a shame. You clearly have much nursing experience and are very likely to be a highly skilled nurse.
I think the guy you are talking to is a brash and rude person who despises the US. He is in an ASN to FNP program and knows everything.
I am curious as to what area of nursing you are in and how long you have been a nurse. What in your practice has brought you to your conclusions regarding foreign nurses?
You might have a point about me being brash and rude, and for that I apologize. However, I do not despise this country and as an overseas US Army veteran, I think I have proven that. Accusing someone of being unpatriotic for disagreeing with you just demonstrates the weakness of your position on issues like this. You have no valid counter point, you can not demonstrate any facts, and so you just spout out that I "despise" this country simply because I state that nationality does not determine the quality of a nurse.
Nurse4years and you have decided based on your anecdotal experiences that, by virtue of being foreign, nurses from other parts of the world are inferior. As I have pointed out before, with the obvious amount of contempt you bear for these people, because that is what foreign nurses are: people, how effectively can you treat them when they end up as one of your patients? My faith and religion tell me that all people on this planet have equal worth, and that the convention of borders does not determine a persons worth.
I think it's important to know that contact your elected officials is so important. I've participated in Lobby Days in Illinois and in telephone drives to elected official's offices and have actually seen those officials change their minds about issues after hearing from their constituants.
Now, with email, many advocacy websites and programs offer "quick reply" contacts, where you get an action alert email, hit a button and fill in your name to send it to your congressman. You don't even have to know who they are!
There isn't a shortage of nurses, it's the fact that nurses are leaving in droves because of the working conditions!!! Grant more foreign visas?? Oh, great idea More foreign labor to dilute wages. Here's an idea .... try paying nurses what they're worth, and have better staffing ratios. Oh, and why not let LPN's (who are already here, and trained!!!) into more institutions?
Aaaarghhhhhhhh!!!!!
mc3
AMEN! I am so burnt out lately! I can't stand the regulations enforced upon nursing. Nursing is becoming intolerable and MORE AND MORE nurses are leaving due to the unrealistic demands placed upon our practice. JCAHO/STATE inspections, regulations for patient safety that do NOTHING but place more work on our overloaded shoulders. Gold standard for patient care is a crock! Fall precautions, restraint issues with side rails down in order to PREVENT FALLS??? COWS at each bedside (half don't work), scanning armbands, and meds in order to prevent med errors....yet the scanners may or may not scan. Bringing foreign nurses over WILL do nothing other than decrease pay for American nurses. DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS BILL! :banghead: American nurses MUST unite and stand together for our careers, and for our patients. Managers are little help for us, so busy trying to kiss state butt. Most of our peers are too busy stabbing each other in the back to even become a united front. In the meantime patients are getting sicker their health concerns increasingly complex and the nurses time is spent maintaining compliance with the myriad of details these "patient safety/accreditation organizations" enforce upon us. Patients are no longer patients...they are clients, customers. Families NOW have huge say in the direction of "client" care regardless of the healthcare teams professional advice. Our hands our tied Nurses due to our inability to work together as a UNIFIED team. Now I am not advocating for unionization, but there has to be someway that we within this forum can make a difference in our chosen profession. If this does not occur soon, you will see more foreign nurses at the bedside, and many of us within the ranks now WILL leave. I for one regrettably want out. This is a painful choice because I do want to be a nurse, and I take pride in my profession, yet my body is hurting, and my mind is exhausted. WAKE UP NURSES....
DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS BILL! 
HoosierMale
36 Posts
Aye, I usually do not get so incensed over one small person but when it involves insulting my fellow nurses who are underpaid and oft not appreciated my ire as an American nurse rises. I too have worked with foreign and domestic and see a clear distinction. I watched my former field of electrical engineering lose hundered of jobs and the pay go into massive decline at the hand of foreign visa receipients who were taking jobs. Much of the work on several systems had to be redone by American engineers on one particular flight system. Thanks for your comments and I, as many American nurses, continue to lobby for better nurse and teacher pay as well as school debt forgiveness the long term solution to our nursing shortage. 700 billion to wall street would have easily sent a lot of bright American recruits to nursing school and enriched and expanded many University programs. Nursing in my mind is a much higher priority.