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St. Cloud State University
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Nursing faces big shortfall
By Cathy Kropp
Published:
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Media Credit: Ryan Henry
Erica Stang (left) and Michelle Clark check charts on the computer on the second floor of St. Cloud Hospital Monday afternoon. Nurses are in high demand these days and some worry about the numbers of students learning and training to become registered nurses.
Lack of adequate funding and the dwindling number of qualified professors have some experts worried that the nationwide nursing shortage will only grow worse in the coming years.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, in the year 2000, Minnesota experienced a shortage of 1,347 nurses. The projected shortage for the year 2020 is 8,096. In fact, by the year 2020, it is expected that only four states in the U.S. will have enough nurses.
Jeanine Nistler, director of communications at St. Cloud Hospital, notes that St. Cloud has not been hit as hard as other areas by the shortage.
"Our hospital is very fortunate in that our turnover rate is lower than the state average and the vacancy rate is lower as well," Nistler said. "We haven't faced the difficulties other hospitals have."
Lack of funding is one of the key contributors to the shortage. According to the Minnesota Nurses Association Web site, the state budget deficit, which is in excess of over $4.5 billion, is an issue of concern for future funding proposals.
According to the site, dramatic cuts have been made in the healthcare field in an effort to balance the state budget. A $60 million proposal that would have expanded funding for nursing schools failed in the legislation. This money would have been used to expand enrollment and recruit more nursing faculty, among other things.
Roxanne Wilson, director of education at St. Cloud Hospital, believes that although the proposal failed, an impact was made.
"Support for the initiative brought together multiple groups of people from the hospitals and schools," Wilson said. "Their collaborative effort helped to get the word out about the situation."
Another major concern is the lack of qualified nursing professors.
Patricia Bresser, associate professor in the Department of Nursing Sciences at SCSU, is worried that the nursing shortage will get progressively worse if the number of teachers is not increased.
"One of our biggest concerns is that we don't have the faculty to cover the specialty issues," Bresser said. "There are quite a few students that want to get into the program, but there are not enough faculty to teach them."
Bresser believes that the faculty shortage problem will be difficult to solve.
"We are trying to encourage nurses to go into teaching, but there is not an awful amount of incentive to go into education," Bresser said. "People can make more money in nursing than they can in education."
Salary range for an LPN is $13.43 to $18.80 per hour and $16.77 to $33.94 per hour for RN positions, Nistler said. The high end of the RN scale is for nurses with a master's degree, extensive experience and who work in a unit that operates 24 hours a day.
Wilson believes that area schools such as SCSU need to offer more programs that allow students to earn their master's and their Ph.D. These doctorates are necessary for people to become nursing professors.
"We need more accessible programs in central Minnesota so that people can go to school while they continue to work," Wilson said. "Many of these programs are located two or more hours away and it's not reasonable for students to travel that far to go to classes and continue working, too."
The nursing shortage is not something that will be solved overnight, but unless major steps are taken, statistics show that it will only get worse.
"It is a very exciting time to be in nursing because there is lot of opportunity," Bresser said. "But there is not a sufficient number of nurses to give adequate and safe care to the people who need it. It's the best of times in some ways and the worst of times in others."
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