Debbie Moore-Black, is a registered nurse whose blogs regularly appear on the medical news website, KevinMD.com. With the unearthly demands of COVID and historic lack of concern for the nursing populace, she wrote this week on the degradation and the devaluation of the nation’s nursing force.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul remained adamant that health care workers get vaccinated by Sept. 27 in the state or be replaced.
"To all the healthcare providers, doctors and nurses in particular who are vaccinated, I say thank you. Because you are keeping true to your oath," Hochul said during a visit to Rochester Wednesday. "To those who won’t, we will be replacing people."
Philadelphia-area nurses represented by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) are planning go hold a series of "public actions" to call attention to what they say are critical staffing concerns at local medical centers.
Additionally, nurses across Pennsylvania plan to gather in Harrisburg on Sept. 28 to urge legislators to pass the Patient Safety Act, which would mandate nurse-to-patient ratios, based on patient acuity, in all state hospitals.
Amid the nationwide nursing shortage, Beacon Health System is offering up to a $20 an hour raise to keep local nurses on staff, long-term.
“Nurses work really hard, they’ve been working hard even before COVID, but even more so now during COVID,” said Sharvon Robinson, the Dean of the School of Nursing at Ivy Tech Community College.
Amid staffing shortages as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grip Michigan, Henry Ford Health System plans to add nurses from overseas, its president and CEO said Tuesday.
"We are working on a large swath of folks coming in the first quarter of next year to be able to provide service by summer, hopefully, once we get through the training and immigration process," Wright Lassiter III told a panel during the Mackinac Policy Conference.
Afterward, Lassiter said the new nurses would come primarily from the Republic of the Philippines, where proficiency in the English language is high and nursing standards are similar to those in the United States. While he could not put a precise number on those targeted, Lassiter said he expected it to be in the low hundreds.