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.

[oramar]

I object to the statement "hospital staffs maybe stretched thin due to unfilled nursing positions". Hospital staffs are stretched thin because that is the way management holds down cost. I agree with the statement, " health care changes championed by Obama raise the number of Americans that have access to health care, more nurses will be needed to accommodate them.

[noc4senuf]

Apparently they do not count in Minneapolis and St. Paul where there have been massive layoffs at most of the hospitals.

[cloister]

So, if there's such a shortage, why is it that so many new grads are having difficulty finding jobs? I've read plenty of posts on these boards from nurses who remain unemployed for months following graduation. Gotta admit, I don't really understand it, because where I am, we're still hiring new grads into the ICU.

Thoughts?

[mommy2boysaz]

There are no jobs (or very few) in my area, either! NE Indiana/NW Ohio

Layoffs are starting.

[EwwThat'sNasty]

A co-working nurse Manager in Michigan just told me that local employment bulletin boards usually had few if any RN applicants listed, she states that now there are a ton of them...

People are putting of elective surgery such as total knee replacemets and "living with it." And what about the thread here talking about the closed and "closing" hospitals in NJ?

And what of downgrades? By that I mean that I was due for a review and if nothing else a cost of living pay increase back in January. Gone. Worse, my decent medical and dental insurance plan was removed and the medical plan that was reinstated appears to be one that is sold in a comic book. At the very beginning of the plan it states in bold letters: "This is not a Major Medical Policy," it is basic medical coverage only.

I am not at all comfortable that I'll have this job for all too many months...

[WildcatFanRN, BSN, RN]

Nursing shortage is a joke. New Grads can't find positions because hospitals don't want to pay for our training and the preceptor training us at the same time. All the job postings are for experienced nurses, but we all know finding experienced nurses willing to put up with crappy working conditions are few. Laying off nurses isn't going to help a particular hospitals bottom line IMHO, it will actually hurt precious customer service ALOT.

There are places that actually have NO nursing shortage. We should all write the President and inform him that there IS NO Shortage. Just really bad working conditions and low pay, which is why positions go unfilled. A hospital can build a new multimillion dollar upgrade, but can't give their nurses a raise.

When my mom as a CNA her nursing home didn't give the nurses a raise for several years because they had a DON who wanted an all RN staff. Hired all those RN's and ran the budget so far in the red she was fired and the nursing staff suffered. Everyone else got raises but nursing. I'm not saying having an all RN staff in a nursing home is a bad thing, but there is a reason why LPN's are desirable.

Ok, I'm rambling here....but my point is. Heck, I don't know if I have a point....

[Bugaloo]

It is very simple. Healthcare has become money-driven. I understand that everyone has to be paid, but when hospitals, nursing homes, etc....strive to pay their CEO HUGE bucks, while paying their nursing staff as little as they can get away with (as well as making them work under horrible conditions), bad things are going to happen.

First of all, nurses will leave for greener pastures, if they can find them. The ones that stick around will endure "Rah-Rah's" from Management to work even harder to make the customer/patient happy. Then, because the hospital is not making quite enough profit, they will cut costs even more, by cutting nursing positions or not hiring more nurses.

Meanwhile, the "Glue", as they are calling nurses, are becoming more disillusioned and frustrated.

Just my , for what it is worth!

[Oz2]

I am writing the president that there is no shortage. This has me fuming.

[chicarn, BSN, RN]

That ridicullous, no nursing shortage in Chicago. A lot of my classmate still looking for job, I was hired in crappy hospital after 5 months on intensive job hunting.

Tonight, I supposed to be working, but they cancelled me off.

May be the President should read in allnurses.com forum, for reality check.

[breaktime]

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...

[BradleyRN]

The nursing shortage is just an excuse to stretch working nurses to our limits. If we had descent ratios, then the 20% of nurses who arent even nursing may come back. They always blame the lack of teachers, but they need to be looking at that 20% as well, and they might realize there is more than one reason behind this. Importing nurses and pumping out more of them will only serve to keep our working conditions from ever improving. :)