Editorial: Band-aid for nursing shortage

Sunday, May 28, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.

Public health officials in poor nations have been angered to learn of a little-known provision in immigration legislation advancing in Congress that could lure their nurses away.

The measure pending in the Senate as an amendment to the immigration reform bill is aimed at easing America's nursing shortage. An estimated 118,000 nursing job vacancies in the United States could soar to more than 800,000 by 2020, according to one federal estimate.

The Senate provision would remove a cap on the number of foreign nurses who can emigrate to the United States until 2014. That has medical officials in poor countries panicking that their own nursing shortages could worsen. The problem could be particularly acute in India and in the Philippines, which sends the most nurses to the United States, according to a report in The New York Times. Nurses who make $2,000 a year there can make $36,000 or more in this country, the newspaper noted.

The Senate legislation ultimately could help lessen the pain states are feeling from a chronic nursing shortage. Nevada, with the worst nurse-to-patient ratio in the nation, could benefit from the measure.

For the long term, however, it would be much better for Congress and state governments to take a serious, home-grown approach to the nursing shortage. Lawmakers and public health officials have a huge pile of problems they must get serious about solving: low salaries, a lack of career advancement opportunities and tough working conditions that include piles of paperwork, mandatory overtime and staggering patient loads.

It also is essential that we expand the nation's nursing school programs. Last year 150,000 qualified applicants were turned away by nursing schools, in some cases because there weren't enough instructors willing to teach future nurses for low pay.

It is a massive problem. And it is getting much worse - and fast. America can do better than just luring nurses away from other countries. While there are no quick fixes, hospitals, colleges and universities, states and Congress need a creative, comprehensive plan that addresses the nursing shortage as a long-term crisis.