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Where Have All the Nurses Gone
Shortage seen critical as baby-boomers age
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Business New Haven
4/16/2001
By: Linda Mele
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If you are a member of the Baby Boomer generation, it might surprise you to learn that by the time you reach retirement age, if current trends continues, there will not be enough nurses to take care of you should the need for such services arises.
Realizing that many of her constituents will be impacted by the shortage, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-3) held a roundtable discussion recently to address the problem with those who are directly involved with recruiting, educating and retaining nurses.
DeLauro says that, since 1996, more than 3,200 nurses left the state or didn't renew their licenses. In 1999 there were 43,399 licensed registered nurses living and working in the state, but the number of newly licensed nurses is down 25-percent from four years ago. And the vacancy rates for nurses in the state's hospitals are up 50-percent since 1995.
“The growing shortage of trained nurses will threaten the quality of care in Connecticut's health-care facilities and the delivery of home care,” DeLauro says. “Connecticut must implement a comprehensive solution to attracting and retaining more nurses and health care workers.”
“Nurses play a critical and often under-appreciated role in our health-care system,” DeLauro adds. “America's health-care system relies on talented and dedicated nurses, making the need to fix the nursing shortage all the more important.”
For Baby Boomers, the shortage may have a special significance since the average age of Connecticut's nurses is 45 and they'll be retiring at the same time many Baby Boomers do. In fact, 15-percent of all the state's licensed nurses are expected to retire within the next 15 years. In addition, only nine percent of all the registered nurses in the U.S. are under age 30.
Also of importance is the fact that 39 percent of registered nurses in the state work only part time. And the national average for registered nurses working in direct patient care is 82.5 percent, while Connecticut's is 78.2 percent.
Among those present at the meeting were Polly Barey, executive director of the Connecticut Nurses Association, Walt Bradley, administrator of the Milford Health Care Center, Toni Fatone, executive vice president of the Connecticut Association of Healthcare Facilities, Mary Hickey, executive director of the Connecticut League of Nursing, Joanne Walsh, president and CEO of the Visiting Nurses Assoc. of South Central Connecticut as well as other representatives from the state's health-care industry.
According to Susan McGinnis, executive director of the Nursing Career Center of Connecticut, her organization focuses on recruiting and it has already made some inroads at schools throughout the state.
“We need to work with guidance counselors and the School-To-Work initiative,” McGinnis says. Roundtable participants believe a specific initiative for training nurses female and male, needs to be devised. While such an initiative seems to be the logical answer to the shortage, there are some obstacles that need to be overcome.
Virginia Humphry, executive director of the Connecticut Association for Home Care, says one barrier to recruiting young people of either gender to enter the profession is its image as a “dead-end” job. Another is the amount of paperwork and other non-patient responsibilities required by state and federal regulations.
Erinn Birney, a Lauralton Hall graduate who is a nurse at Milford Hospital, says that patients don't care if there aren't enough nurses or if the nurses there are have a lot of paperwork to do. “They care about how fast the buzzer is being answered,” Birney says.
DeLauro wants the state's health-care professionals to help draft legislation on a national level that will address the shortage. U.S. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and James Jeffords (R-Vt.) are also working on legislation that would address future health-care needs.
“Given the tremendous importance of the job and the sacrifices made by nurses, we need to do everything we can to attract young people to the profession and make sure that the job is one they will want to stay with,” DeLauro says.
Some suggest that the state's vocational/technical high schools and community/technical colleges should grab the ball and run with it and, perhaps, offer incentives to those who answer the call.
Still others say the recruitment of nurses should be part of the health-care component of the state‚s Industry Cluster initiative.
The World Wide Web may be an indicator of things to come. For example, one search engine revealed 83 nurse's employment sites. In addition, 370 are devoted to nursing education, 72 to student nurses, 354 to nursing specialties and 230 to nurses' organizations.
One thing everyone seems to agree on is that we can't wait until the last minute, as nearly everyone did regarding Y2K. If we're going to try and solve this problem, we have to do it now.
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