Shame on the Board of Nursing!!

[NurseRALi]

My classmates and I are waiting to take our NCLEX in NYC only to be told that they are backed up by 3 months, still trying to verify our school or just waiting. Waiting on what? I don't know. Being backed up in the busiest graduation time of the year is normal but it seems they have an issue keeping some documents safe or scheduling staff appropriately to keep up with the demand. I've called several times only to have a curt or vague response from staff members, 'you have a confirmation number? well we don't have your information from the school. I know it was delivered on July 16 but we don't have it here. Have them resend it and call us back a week after it's delivered, bye'. It is now September 10. This seems weird and highly unlikely that such a reputable institution could lose my paperwork and keep my application on hold without having the professional courtesy of calling the school and saying they've lost it. Has anyone else been experiencing the same from the Board of Nursing?

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

I don''t know if it's the same for you, but our state government caused our BON to become seriously understaffed - due to budget cuts. Despite rapidly increasing demand (from new grads, influx of nurses from other states, more stringent disciplinary procedures, etc) they only recently allowed the addition of a couple more staff members. Our state operates on a biennium, so by the time we can launch lobbying efforts for more resources, it seems like it's already too late!!!!

Oh - and when our nursing boards combined (RN & LVN) a few years ago, they decreased total staff resources under the mistaken assumption that there would be some sort of economies of scale I guess. Not surprisingly, not only did it didn't work out that way - but it caused a bad situation to become even worse. We still have the most poorly staffed & underfunded professional board in terms of resources per capita.