Help train more nurses
State lawmakers get a bill that could ease future shortages
Updated: 06/17/08 6:40 AM
The good news is, a lot of us are living longer than ever before. The government’s latest statistics show an average life expectancy as of 2006 of 78.1 years, up a fraction from 2005.
The bad news is, just at a time when we are going to need a lot more nurses to help care for all those old folks, they might not be there.
The latest statistics from the Healthcare Association of New York State show a 2007 vacancy rate for registered nurse positions at 8.8 percent statewide and 13.2 percent in Western New York, in both cases up significantly from 2006.
The association, armed with that data, is backing a bill by State Sen. George Maziarz that would create a fund to boost nursing education in New York. That, its supporting experts say, would help to deal with the bottleneck that is the biggest problem with keeping the nursing slots filled in hospitals, clinics, home health agencies and so on.
It’s not that there are not people who would like to be nurses. It’s not so much that the profession is demanding and stressful. And the pay is better than it once was.
The problem is that there just aren’t enough schools that have programs to train nurses. What programs there are are full, and sometimes have waiting lists of would-be nursing students.
Most local hospitals no longer train their own nurses. Some schools that once did so eliminated their programs in the last dip in the supply-and-demand cycle, and getting back in is expensive, especially given the high-tech nature of today’s medical practices.
And that’s where Maziarz’s “New York State Nursing Shortage Correction Act” comes in. It would create a means for the state to help nursing schools, present and future, with money for creating and operating nurse training programs, recruiting the most qualified instructors, and equiping labs and clinical settings.
The Newfane Republican’s bill doesn’t actually put any money into the fund. That’s for another budget cycle. But an official state channel to help pay for beefing up the quality and quantity of nursing education in New York is certainly a good idea. The need goes beyond those who will be the patients of the new crop of nurses.
In an area that is as desperate for economic growth as we are, it would be more than a shame if people with the interest and talent to become nurses had to settle for something else, maybe with less pay, just because the state was lacking the infrastructure to train them. Dreams of building an area economic rebirth around medical services would be damaged as well.
Nursing in Western New York needs some first aid. Maziarz’s bill would help a lot.
