Thread: Improved Immigration System Could Help Nurse Shortage

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report

Opinion | Improved Immigration System Could Help Address Nursing Shortage, Editorial States
[Sep 12, 2007]
While it has been widely reported that "the dysfunctional U.S. immigration system contributes to labor shortages in agriculture," a less familiar fact is "that low green card quotas have also left the U.S. with an undersupply of nurses that threatens patient care," the Wall Street Journal writes in an editorial. The editorial cites a new study by Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy, which finds that the "aging U.S. population and low domestic production of nurses in the U.S. has created a nursing shortage that carries deadly consequences."

The Journal notes that despite "more interest in the profession" among U.S. residents, "faculty shortages and inadequate facilities have prevented nursing programs from expanding enrollment." It continues, "When growers can't find field hands, food rots and businesses lose money. But when hospitals can't find nurses, patient care suffers."

The Journal states that the "long-term solution here is to increase nursing faculty and teaching facilities. But in the short run, Congress could help enormously by easing the limit on foreign nurses allowed entry to the U.S." The editorial concludes, "More such green cards are needed now, before hospital understaffing contributes to more preventable illness and death" (Wall Street Journal, 9/12).




http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_repo ... R_ID=47463

If we cut down on the number of illegals using our hospitals maybe we would not have as great of nurse shortage. Once again we need to stop immigration, deport illegals, and then determine what America's real need is. until we find out what we really need we don't need to base increase on more immigration requirements which include illegals.

I'm looking for another article I saw that stated that outsourced auto workers were going into healthcare/nursing and that they just weren't being trained quickly enough. I'll try to find that one also. There is always a "logical" explanation as to why we can't use American workers!

There is no shortage of citizens who want to be nurses but there is a shortage of schools since some of the student spots are filled by FOREIGN STUDENTS who will return to their home counries after training.........Unbelievable !!

Again why our we allowing these foreign students to come here when we have a nurse shortag ! And why isn't some of the money spent on Illegals being used to build more nursing schools ??

Hospitals willing to pay for American nurses can get them.

I speak as a former hospital employee (12 years) with many connections in the healthcare industry. This "nursing shortage" is a veiled demand for exemptions for more cheap foreign labor. Hospitals increase their bottom line profits by filling the never-ending need for caregivers with RNs, LPNs, and aides imported from the Philippines and other Asian nations. New arrivals from Asia work for less than the going rate for equally experienced available American citizen workers.

Then there are the doctors in the UK who turned out to be Islamist terrorists. A new academic text will be released in November about securing hospitals against bioterrorism by hospital employees. Now that's something to make you lie awake at night.

The "nursing shortage" is all about "PROFITS".
The article quoted above was in the Wall Street Journal. Doesn't that tell you anything?

TWO SUGGESTIONS:

1. GET RID OF ILLEGALS OVERCROWDING OUR HOSPITALS!!!!!

2. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH NURSING SCHOOLS, MEDICAL SCHOOLS OR DENTAL SCHOOLS. INVEST IN SCHOOLS FOR AMERICANS AND LEGAL IMMIGRANTS, INSTEAD OF IN ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!!!

The excuse of a shortage is step one in giving a profession away. That's what they said in IT, and the guestworkers were supposed to be temporary. They're the ones marching to Washtington for green cards now, many of them never went home and don't want to. We have pushed an entire generation of American talent away from IT, and surrendered what used to be our strategic advantage in this field. Bring in more foreign nurses, and before long an American who manages to train for nursing won't get hired.

As one who works in healthcare as an RN I can attest that you are ALL right. We now have besides an abundance of Filipino nurses who stay in America once they come. And now an influx of nurses from Africa and China! Although many of the latter are starting out as aides, etc. and going to nursing school here. (Yep, there go our nursing school slots, taken from American students).

And many Canadian nurses which has been the case for years; however the Canadian nurses tend to keep their roots in Canada. They come an work for a period of months on contract with a travel nurse agency then return home; or if they live close to the border they migrate back and forth on their work days. This was the case when I worked in Detroit/Dearborn, Mi.

On two points I will differ; one is that there truly IS a nursing shortage. Hospitals have been striving for nurse retention for years. They cannot keep the ones they get. There are a variety of factors for this. One of the biggest is that there are many other positions for nurses to move into that don't involve direct patient care, such as discharge planning, administration, consultants, etc. Aside from the fact that nurses are the ones who are on the front lines and receive the brunt of patient and family frustrations and anger. Some nurses just get fed up with it and leave the profession altogether.

The other is that these nurses are paid the prevailing wage, they are not paid less. If they come into the country with the assistance of an agency they often have to pay fees to that agency for the first year. After that they are on their own and earn what we do.

But I am fully in agreement that the shortage either wouldn't exist or would be much more manageable if we didn't have to service the millions of ILLEGAL ALIENS who are here and avail themselves of our healthcare system! Just as it is with our education system; both disciplines are bursting at the seams with the flood of illegal immigrants.

Get rid of the illegals and there wouldn't be a shortage. Also, nursing colleges and universities should be recruiting young men and women in our high schools, not in foreign countries. Americans should be able to get an education in nursing before allowing foreign students one.

Illegals are OVERCROWDING our country. Every aspect of it...
SEND THEM PACKING!!!!!!!!!!!!! We want OUR country back!!!!!