Here's the letter I wrote to the President, Vice-President, U.S. Congress Rep. and Senator:
"I'm an R.N. and I recently started working as an agency nurse because the pay is so much better and the hours are very flexible. The hospital system in my area that uses most of the agency nurses is in the process of hiring foreign labor to cut costs and fill positions. I read an article, "Is there REALLY a nursing shortage?" by Richard Armstrong and what he said really concerned me. It is true that American jobs are going overseas and there are over 8 million Americans out of work. People who go to school for certain professions do not have jobs when they graduate. Where is the AMERICAN DREAM going??? I realize our country is a melting pot and all, but what about OUR JOBS for US HERE???!!!
Please abolish the H-1B program. Americans need to demand that employers not be allowed to replace American workers with foreigners... I'm finally not living paycheck to paycheck as a nurse and I'm finally able to get ahead... But now there is this big black cloud looming over my head and it's full of foreign nurses trying to get out of THEIR country to take MY job. Why are you letting this happen to your fellow Americans???
Sincerely,
Marie L. Schultz
Shreveport, Louisiana"
I don't know if it will help or not, but I figured it was worth a try. Nurses from India, Africa and Thailand (among others) are coming to the Shreveport area to fill gaps of this so-called nursing shortage so that the hospital system I work at won't have to use agency nurses. Instead of paying American nurses better... this is what is happening. Nice. Very nice.
Do you see this happening where YOU are??? I just started working agency and that's all I'm doing right now. I love it. I just started April 19th, 2004 and here it is... not one month later and 15 foreigners are starting in the next week or so as a "pilot" for the other 3 hospitals of this hospital chain. This hospital chain uses most agency nurses here in Shreveport. They're trying to get rid of agency nurses all together by using these other nurses.
Again I ask: Do you see this happening where YOU are???
Essentially what you are saying there is a shortage of nurses willing to work under those conditions, but really there are plenty of nurses out there.
Yes, this is true.
We have a huge revolving door in our hospital, but there is never a shortage of agency nurses to fill those holes. We can't get nurses to stay much past their orientation, oftentimes not even completing orientation, before quitting.
Regardless of how you look at it, the solution involves having to spend more money either on hiring more nurses to make the patient and nurse ratio's realistic or you start paying nurses in acute care settings a much higher salary. Either way hospitals are never going to get around having to spend more money on quality health care provided by nurses. They used the change from 8 hour to 12 hour shifts as a temporary solution to saving money by needing less nurses to cover shifts. Now they are in the same predicament again.
I am suspicious of the validity of the "nursing shortage". There may have been one, or even still may be one, BUT I believe it serves the agenda of the healthcare corporations to continue to blame the "nursing shortage" for their practice of short staffing units in order to save the almighty dollar.State and even better, Federal mandated nurse patient ratios may help aleviate this phenomenon, IF the healthcare facilities will be severly punished when they try to circumvent mandated ratios,by some of their devious methods, they seem to be so good at.
Right on, Ingelein. There's no shortage of nurses. There's a shortage of nursing jobs in good working conditions.
If you haven't already seen it, you might find this report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research quite interesting. It's called "Solving the Nursing Shortage through Higher Wages." Bottom line: When hospitals boost wages, nurses go to work for them.
The report also addresses nurse-patient ratios, which are supported -- in concept only, at this point -- by the union in my home state, the Maine State Nurses Association. Given that the union has just voted to affiliate with the California Nurses Association, this could get interesting.
There wouldn't be a problem if they staffed appropriately, even on medsurg.
Instead, one nurse has to do the work of two people. If the staffing were adequate so that one nurse was only expected to do the work of one person, people wouldn't mind working. It all comes down to money and where they can make it, and labor is a big expense and working the nurses short is one place where they can save money.
I believe that there is a pseudoshortage of nurses. There is a shortage of nurses willing to work under the current working conditions. I was unable to find any data for 2006, but I found this government publication about the registered nurse workforce in 2004. Preliminary Findings 2004 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses
In 2004, there were over 2.4 million registered nurses in the US. Of these, 16.8% were not employed in nursing. Now, in any profession there is a small percentage of people who decide not to remain in the profession for numerous reasons. Also, nursing is a female-dominated profession, so it would be reasonable to assume that a greater number would leave to become stay-at-home mothers, etc. However, 16.8% is still a huge number- over 400,000 nurses that aren't employed in nursing! Remember, this does not include people who decided to leave nursing and let their RN license lapse.
If only a quarter of RNs not employed in nursing returned, there would not be any shortage at all. Of course the population of the public is aging, the average age of nurses is getting higher, and there aren't enough faculty to teach. I believe these issues compound the problem, but someone should be examining one of the biggest issues. Why did 16.8% of the workforce leave nursing?
I wish that I had thought about this before becoming a nurse. The "nursing shortage" was one of the things that attracted me to nursing. I thought that it would be a great field to get into because I could go anywhere and get a job. Well, if something seems to good to be true, it probably is. When I leave my hospital nursing position, hopefully after less than a year in the field, there will be another idealistic grad eager to take my spot. That is part of the problem. So PACNWNursing, hospitals have learned that they don't have to change anything. They don't care about retention, because there are several local community colleges pumping out new grads every year. Also, I agree that hospitals want nurses to believe in the shortage because it helps to justify the staffing ratios.
When I leave my hospital nursing position, hopefully after less than a year in the field, there will be another idealistic grad eager to take my spot. That is part of the problem. So PACNWNursing, hospitals have learned that they don't have to change anything. They don't care about retention, because there are several local community colleges pumping out new grads every year. Also, I agree that hospitals want nurses to believe in the shortage because it helps to justify the staffing ratios.
Demographically, that position will become insupportable within about 10 years. It's predicted that there simply won't be a continuous stream of new grads available by then, population-wise.
But I predict there'll still be a shortage of nurses as well as services, because with Boomers in retirement, people won't be able to afford healthcare anyway, and many services will still be cut.
Kate, good call, if the hospitals keep beating the drum of a nursing shortage, they know people who are pressed to find a secure career will seriously consider nursing.
I wouldn't be so sure about that stream of new grads. Even if people "seriously consider" careers in nursing, they've still got to be educated, and with the faculty shortage as bad as it is, programs are already struggling to meet demand. You can't educate new nurses without nursing faculty, and we don't give nurses at the master's and Ph.D level much choice when they have to take big pay cuts to take campus jobs.
Ingel.. you couldn't have hit the nail on the head more accurately. Hospitals, and health care agencies attempts to circumvent necessary staffing ratios is what makes nursing a very undesirable field in which to work.
Even with state staffing regulations, many companies spend more man power and money attempting to maniplate the regualtions in order to essentially "short staff", nursing areas. We nurses are fools to accomodate these conditions.
The demographics are clearly in favor of the shortage continuing and probably growing. It doesn't matter if there is a over supply of licensed RN or not. The real supply is the number of RNs willing to work in the hospitals, SNF, etc. If that is not enough to meet the demand then either the economic compensation for RNs will continue to increase or as been tried before in other times of crisis, dumbing down the profession and moving what at one time was exclusively an RN role to less educated and prepared practicioners.With the risk of decreasing quality of care and patient safety.
There is also a shrinking supply of new RNs for several reasons. The main two are demographics of the generations following the boomers and the fact that women have far more career paths open to them then when a significant number of RNs practising today were originally educated. Also 30 years ago when I started to practise almost 80% of nursing employment was hospital based, today, that number has shrunk to about 54% of nursing employment.
The latter fact is just begining to be recognized by the hospital industry and has lead to the improvements in compensation of RNs as they begin to compete with other industries for the talent level that is required to be an RN.
My theory is there is a more of a 'shortage' in areas where nurses can't afford to live i.e. california, flordia, ect. In places where the cost of living is affordable, and in more 'desirable' areas (northern colorado) , there isn't as much of a shortage. I live in N. Colo, and it is competitive here to get into RN jobs.
Also, Nurses seem to always be interested in going to 'where the grass is greener,' which leads to continual turnover.
Why are you letting this happen to your fellow Americans???
:angryfire
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RunningWithScissors
225 Posts
Yes, this is true.
We have a huge revolving door in our hospital, but there is never a shortage of agency nurses to fill those holes. We can't get nurses to stay much past their orientation, oftentimes not even completing orientation, before quitting.