What nursing shortage? Not around here...they don't need nurses.

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hmmm, is there a nursing shortage?

not around here.

the hospitals around here don't have any openings...

.....of course that might be because they staff bare bones.

i don't know how they get away with it. :uhoh21:

I live in MN and have been job hunting for almost 2 months. I call one particular hospital every week and a half to talk with them. The job market is awlful in northern MN. We are actually looking at moving next spring if I can't get a job.

MN is one of the few states that actually doesn't have a shortage. The federal Department of Health projects that there won't be a shortage in that state for another ten years.

Just because there's a nationwide shortage, doesn't mean that there's a shortage in every area.

Come out to California. Plenty of shortage here. Because of our huge population (and the ratio law), we have less nurses per capita than any state in the nation. And, tons of nursing jobs.

;)

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

Come on down to SC. Cheaper to live here :) and very, very, very little chance of snow..Mountains, beaches......tempting yes?

Well not so tempting at the beach when hurricanes pass here.

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Come on down to SC. Cheaper to live here :) and very, very, very little chance of snow..Mountains, beaches......tempting yes?

Well not so tempting at the beach when hurricanes pass here.

Sounds Great to me! I have been thinking about a relocation once the kids are in college.

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Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

Come out to California. Plenty of shortage here. Because of our huge population (and the ratio law), we have less nurses per capita than any state in the nation. And, tons of nursing jobs.

;)

I was just in CA working, and now that I'm up North, I am making plans to return to CA once the BIG EARTHQUAKE they are expecting SOON has passed! :rolleyes:

I LOVE CALIFORNIA! When I'm there, I miss my kids and grandkids a lot, but when I'm not there, I miss my favorite place to live. :o

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I would love to work in an area that was not affected by the nursing shortage. I spent most of my career at a large hospital on the South Plains of Texas where they recruited heavily from the Phillipines. The work conditions were great and overtime pay was phenomenal. We also had 3 nursing programs in the area - however, despite generous sign-on bonuses and good pay for the region - we were still chronically affected by a lack of nurses, even new grads. I also worked in a large medical facility in Phoenix, AZ where I was only one of 23 core staff nurses - the rest were all agency and travel. I am now in a management position at a small hospital in the Panhandle of Nebraska. I have a hard time believing after having spent the previous month in contact with over 50 different travel agencies in an attempt to get our nurses some help- who repeatedly informed me that they had no qualified candidates at the time (we're looking for ICU/med surg)- that there is not a critical nursing shortage. This facility too offers a very generous sign-on bonus and a higher base pay for new grads than the facility I used to work for in Texas is offering. Additionally our nursing leadership is adament that our nurse patient ratio in the med-surg setting is 5 to 1. - plus our cost of living here is LOW, LOW, LOW. Despite this, when I applied for my position, I was the first applicant for an RN position our hospital had in over a year. We are a 25 bed critical access facility and currently have 4 FT night RN positions open, 1 RN position in Home Health Care, 1 LPN day position, and 2 night nurses' aide positions. These positions have been open for a long time, we just have not had any applications for them, not even from new grads. We try to fill this void by utilizing travel nurses, which come at a premium cost, and are chronically having to run our nurse patient ratios higher than our target. We don't use this as an excuse to overwork our staff - frequently, the managers work the floor to help fill in the gaps. We would much rather spend the money on core staff that would build a cohesive team then to keep having to funnel our resources into travel agencies. So, long story short, three different regions of the country, 3 great places to work, all of which are profoundly affected by the nursing shortage.

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Stop with the grassy knoll theories...It is nothing more than simple economics and a little white lie.

3 yrs ago our senior VP told us that we would cut 1 nurse per shift (no big deal, right. Everybody was having to tighten the old belt) He then went on to tell us that we would work 1 nurse short until we were used to it...then we would cut 1 more...until we were used to it...

We are now taking care of more and sicker pts with less staff than ever. Complaints are up, infections are up, med errors are up...

Do you think administration is going to admit that it was done to make more money? I don't think so...Who can they blame...What about starting a national campaign to blame nursing for all the problems in healthcare.

There was an article in a local paper about a nurse who was sued for not "assessing the pts risk for bleeding disorders prior to an invasive procedure", and had to pay. What was she supposed to do? Order PT, PTT??? Sounds like a Doc should have done that.

Get used to it, we are the scapegoats for this industry.

There is not a nursing shortage...just a shortage of patient care.

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I think that crying SHORTAGE, SHORTAGE, SHORTAGE!!! gives hospitals a convenient excuse to recruit foreign nurses to be brought in at a lower rate of pay. It also serves as an attempt to flood the market with new nurses in an effort to make supply larger than demand - which legitimates keeping salaries low. Health care is notorious for manipulating public perception for their own advantage. Remember when antitrust laws were relaxed "for the greater good" (HA!) to allow pharmaceutical companies to merge (Smith, Glaxo, and Kline become SmithGlaxoKline) so that research funds could be combined, new drugs could be developed faster, and the companies could work together rather than against each other, blah, blah, blah. What really came of that? Exactly what the antitrust laws were designed to prevent: rather than having Smith, Glaxo, and Kline competing for business with drug prices, SmithGlaxoKline decides what the price of the med is going to be and that is the end of it. Hence, all the furor over people getting their Rx meds from Canada, where they are cheaper. The big conglomerate is all upset over losing its (illegally obtained if the law had not been relaxed for it) millions of dollars.

I think TPTB are trying to do the same thing to nursing. Just my thoughts, though.

I agree totally.

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Stop with the grassy knoll theories...It is nothing more than simple economics and a little white lie.

3 yrs ago our senior VP told us that we would cut 1 nurse per shift (no big deal, right. Everybody was having to tighten the old belt) He then went on to tell us that we would work 1 nurse short until we were used to it...then we would cut 1 more...until we were used to it...

We are now taking care of more and sicker pts with less staff than ever. Complaints are up, infections are up, med errors are up...

Do you think administration is going to admit that it was done to make more money? I don't think so...Who can they blame...What about starting a national campaign to blame nursing for all the problems in healthcare.

There was an article in a local paper about a nurse who was sued for not "assessing the pts risk for bleeding disorders prior to an invasive procedure", and had to pay. What was she supposed to do? Order PT, PTT??? Sounds like a Doc should have done that.

Get used to it, we are the scapegoats for this industry.

There is not a nursing shortage...just a shortage of patient care.

I agree w/ you, as well. I live in North Texas, and there are TONs of nurses here. My employer cancels nurses and sends others home early every day, leaving us short because we are "overstaffed."

Whenever we have a job opening, MANY nurses apply for it, and the pay is LOW.There are more nurses than jobs here.

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Wow- what a difference a state can make! over here on oklahoma there are openings in every hospital, for almost every department! Hop on any medical center web site and there are pages of openings, BUT there are not enough people to fill them. Every program ADN & BSN is highly competitive-and only able to accept 30% of applicants! how can we address the shortage when we can't educate people wanting to become nurses. I know this is only one factor, but it's frustrating. I am 35- married, mom of 2 and working on pre-reqs. I have a previous BS degree and hope to get into the 2nd degree BSN in 06, an accelerated 14 month program. I know that I'll have a job in any dept- with sign -on bonus when i'm finished. of course i'll be walking into the same situation with staffing that exists now-nurses retiring, population growing, budget cuts, etc. I don't have any answers-just my 2cents. Good luck to all!!

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Wow- what a difference a state can make! over here on oklahoma there are openings in every hospital, for almost every department! Hop on any medical center web site and there are pages of openings, BUT there are not enough people to fill them. Every program ADN & BSN is highly competitive-and only able to accept 30% of applicants! how can we address the shortage when we can't educate people wanting to become nurses. I know this is only one factor, but it's frustrating. I am 35- married, mom of 2 and working on pre-reqs. I have a previous BS degree and hope to get into the 2nd degree BSN in 06, an accelerated 14 month program. I know that I'll have a job in any dept- with sign -on bonus when i'm finished. of course i'll be walking into the same situation with staffing that exists now-nurses retiring, population growing, budget cuts, etc. I don't have any answers-just my 2cents. Good luck to all!!

I am in Oklahoma too and I already invited OP to come on down!

Here is the real story(in my opinion)about the shortage

http://www.okcnursingtimes.com/specials/category_show.asp?count=10&catid=88&active=0

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I am in Oklahoma too and I already invited OP to come on down!

Here is the real story(in my opinion)about the shortage

http://www.okcnursingtimes.com/specials/category_show.asp?count=10&catid=88&active=0

Great articles, CCU NRS.

Thanks for posting the link!

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Great articles, CCU NRS.

Thanks for posting the link!

Well Thank you, it is strictly commentary but I did quite a bit of research, there is not a works cited page on the site but I have all of the links for my research.

References:

1. Lisa Rapaport (2001) Need for nurses gets more acute: Some worry about lapses in care at area hospitals. Sacramento Bee http://users.rcn.com/wbumpus/sandy/seachange55.htm

2. Florida Hospital Association (2001) The challenges of nursing

How many nurses are there? Source: Eye on the Health Care Workforce http://www.careernurse.net/challenges.html

3. Karen Fletcher, RN, BSN (2004) Oklahoma Board of Nursing Newsletter. PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE http://www.state.ok.us/nursing/jan-nl.pdf

4. Nick Trougakos (2002) Nationwide nursing shortage hitting Oklahoma especially hard. http://www.ardmoreite.com/stories/063002/mon_nursing.shtml

5. Don DeMoro (2000) Engineering a Crisis, How Hospitals Created a Nursing Shortage. http://www.revolutionmag.com/newrev2/engineering.html

6. NCSBN National Council of State Boards of Nursing (2002) Projected Supply, Demand, and Shortages of Registered Nurses: 2000-2020. ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/bhpr/nationalcenter/rnproject.pdf

7. Andi Atwater (2004) Hospitals taking Care of Nurses

http://www.news-press.com/news/local_state/040614agingnurses.html

8. Fact Sheet on Safe Staffing, California Nurses Association 2003 http://www.calnurse.org/finalrat/7103factsheet.html

9. CNA Official Bulletin March-April(2004) http://www.calnurse.org/calnursemarapr04/hospitalstaffingratio.html

10. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO Solving the Nursing Shortage, The Scope of the Shortage. http://www.afscme.org/una/sns04.htm

11. Start (2003) Shortage of instructors, not nursing students http://www.mywebpal.com/news/partners/701/public/news439270.html

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