In an attempt to learn more about America’s nursing shortage crisis, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) held a roundtable discussion with nurses from local hospitals on Friday afternoon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
During the one-hour lunch, Kerry was bombarded with stories that sum up the state of the nursing industry: understaffed hospitals, low salaries, lagging recruitment, poorer retention rates and even an increase in violence against nurses. The nurses, who declined to be identified due to doctor-patient confidentiality laws, told the senator of the daily hardships faced in treating patients.
“There are times my colleagues and I have to cut corners in ways we treat patients and hope that the care is sufficient,” one Brigham and Women’s nurse told Kerry. “There have to be standards of care.
“The system is stressed to the max. We’re facing staffing challenges every day. That’s why we need legislation to help us.”
The understaffing of nurses creates a more stressful work environment where other hospitals are forced to assume a greater responsibility than they are capable of.
“We need to come up with nationwide standards,” the same nurse told Kerry. “It is an emotionally untenable dilemma to put staff in situations where a patient is sent by another hospital” for care.
Despite being the single largest occupation in the health care industry, nursing has suffered a slowdown in its recruitment. In Massachusetts, nurses are paid an average annual salary of $46,000. This puts the industry at a disadvantage compared to hi-tech companies capable of offering more money to college graduates.
“Young people aren’t attracted to the profession anymore,” another nurse said. “They used to go into nursing for the personal reward.”
Kerry said the federal government deserves some of the blame for the current crisis. In 1997, Congress slashed over $260 billion from Medicare. It is that enormous sum which is fueling President George Bush’s proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut.
“Half of the reason the surplus exists is the overpayment of the Medicare cut,” Kerry said. “All Congress did was transfer money out of hospitals to the wealthy Americans.”
He stressed that the nursing shortages are just one of many problems resulting from the health care crisis which finds 44 million Americans without health insurance. He also said that the bill he is sponsoring would fight the nursing shortage by “making it more possible [for those entering the work force] to look at nursing because the support system is there.”
While Kerry’s bill represents a step in the right direction, it is not as far-reaching as some nurses at hoped. Specifically, they advocate a national standard for the staffing of resident nurses and a minimum for the allocation of financial resources to hospitals.
“I do not mandate a national standard,” Kerry acknowledged. “It is possible to rectify some of the systemic problems” before implementing far-reaching solutions. Kerry said he is taking up this issue more fervently now that he has shifted into the Senate Finance Committee. Consequently, he could have more influence in creating change and, in the case of the nursing shortage, “get Washington, that wonderful place, to share some of the cost.”
The event included nurses and representatives from the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the UMass-Boston Nursing Program, Boston Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Cambridge Health Alliance, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
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