NURSES SHORTAGES

Abstract

There is an ever-increasing shortage of nurses in the American hospitals. In 1964 the U.S. Public
Health Services Act signaled a looming shortage of nurses and recommended an increase in
funding of the nurses training. This has been attributed to various factors. Additional funding
resulted into an increase in the number of nurses joining the profession in the subsequent
decades. Since then funding has been increasing, however, the shortage of nurses has been
persistent.
Key words: Nurses’ shortage, public health.
Data originating from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey confirm that the rise in nurse
education financing lead to a subsequent rise in new Registered Nurses completing their courses,
and entering the profession. However, in the same decades between 1970s and 1980s fewer
female numbers registered to be trained as nurses. In 1970s women in significantly much bigger
numbers were enrolling as lawyers and computer programmers, biologists, chemists and
mathematicians, business executives and university professors. Partly because of this rise in
substitute openings for women, smaller numbers of women opted to take nursing degrees. This
additionally contributes to the decreased numbers of trained nurses.

In October 2013 AMN the staffing company produced its annual survey regarding Registered
Nurses. Regarding the respondents’ answers towards plans, over 23 percent of nurses aged about
55 years old indicated they are considering leaving for part-time jobs or retiring completely in
the recent future. That indicates over 187,200 could retire or transfer to non-nursing professions
with additional 81,900 transferring to part-time nurse occupations therefore an aggregate of over

NURSES SHORTAGES 3
269,100 RNs would be parting full time engagements as Registered Nurses. This represents a
looming shortage of nurses if the respondents were to successfully undertake their plans adding
pain to the already existing shortage.

Article Reaction

This article clearly indicates that nurses’ shortages were noticed decades ago and this problem
has never been amicably resolved. I feel that this manifests inefficiency in the oversight bodies
over the years. The fact that young people are opting to engage in other professions other than
nursing indicates that there is need to identify the reasons behind. The most prevalent reason is
of cause remuneration, nurses salaries should be raised to attract more people in the profession.
Funding of nursing training seems to be on the rise, thus, the student numbers are definitely
increasing, however, there still an existing nurses shortage. This calls for establishment of
additional nursing colleges. For this to be successful and in-order to attract qualified instructors
more funding must be injected into the establishment and compensation of the instructors. If this
fails to commence then the nurses shortages will continue to haunt the American Health care.
I find it regrettable that some hospitals have initiated a no fresh graduates hiring, laying
preference to experienced nurses. Bearing in mind the findings that older nurses in the profession
are planning to retire poses a danger f having big numbers of non-experienced nurses in our
hospitals. If fresh graduates are not hired they will most possibly join other professions and the
instance they are required for hiring they will be unavailable. This will create the biggest
shortage of nurses ever experienced. Therefore, hospitals must consider a balanced employment
formula. This will create a continued professional healthcare delivery by experienced nurses.