Foreign nurses decry hurdles to jobs in the U.S.

[Pale Blue Dot]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/7679586.htm

Pam Ladds is livid. The British nurse has been trying for years to get a job in the United States, which faces a persistent shortage of nurses.

Instead, a little-known screening company rejected Ladds' credentials because her nursing-school credits were not tallied up. And it told her three times that she had to pay for a test to prove proficiency in English.

"They must be joking! I speak English better than you do," said Ladds, a Yorkshire native now living in Catskill, N.Y., and looking for work.

The demands emanated from a nonprofit company in University City that serves as the nation's gatekeeper for immigrant nurses - with no competition and little government oversight.

Very long and detailed article, for those with the interest.

[mopinko]

1. ugh

sorry, i don't have time to read this article, but i will spout off anyway, cuz this is an issue that pisses me off. my rant is a little o/t, cuz this woman is from the uk. but we should NOT be bringing nurses over here from third world countries where they are SO badly needed.
the nurses shortage here is caused by 2 factors. one is pay equity. nursing gets more and more complicated every day. there are nurses out there with masters degrees, getting paid jack compared to similar jobs in male dominated professions.
the second factor is the absolute slime ball profits sucking ceo's that have invaded the health care industry. they are sucking out huge profits for shareholders and execs while squeezing costs and care. nurses are the ones in the vice. longer hours, harder work, more and more education, for shit money. and the politicians paint is as "well all those catscanners and miracles cost a lot of money" more smoke and mirrors.
just like the teacher shortage. treat workers like shit, and they will leave. treat women workers like shit, and they will stay home and raise babies. greed, greed, greed. like acid, eating through the economy, and the government. it starts at the top.

[Baclava]

2. British nurses are not shit...

"...but we should NOT be bringing nurses over here from third world countries where they are SO badly needed"

So the UK is now a third world country?...try again...

The problem is with the credentialing process...and the companies that profit from eliminating competition.

[mopinko]

9. i said that

"my rant is a little o/t, cuz this woman is from the uk."

[SharonAnn]

3. I agree. The only reason we have a shortage is that we

pay them badly and treat them worse.

Fix that and there wouldn't be a problem.

[yo-yo-ma]

4. more a matter of patient load

then pay. There is a huge and growing crisis in the US in terms of nursing. They are leaving the profession. As hospitals consolidate more and more for profit, the work load expressed as patient nurse ratio increases. Many are feeling that this is unsafe for the patients. In fact, one of the few voices for patient care in a for profit system comes from nurses - witness the Kaiser strikes in CA several years back. To staff nurses here, we are mining other countries for personnel, especially countries with good and intact nursing education systems such as the Philippines and Nigeria and Ethiopia. There is not some singular monolithic corporation that controls all nursing applicants. In fact nursing administrators from hospitals generally make recruiting trips to other countries. The hospital then takes care of the paper work. The story of the UK nurse is more unusual than representative.

[liberalnurse]

5. Additionally, we have a 10 to 15% shortage of

nursing instructors. That is the position by the ANA....the nursing shortage is a direct result of the inability to train nurses. Has anyone heard of 2-year waiting lists to actually get into the nursing programs? Thats why.....

Also from the AACN.....

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/Backgrounders/shortagefacts.htm

<snip>

A shortage of nursing school faculty is restricting nursing program enrollments.
According to a survey by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2000-2001 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, more than a third (38.8%) of schools who responded pointed to faculty shortages as a reason for not accepting all qualified applicants into entry-level baccalaureate programs. www.aacn.nche.edu


According to a study released by the Southern Regional Board of Education (SREB) in February 2002, a serious shortage of nursing faculty was documented in 16 SREB states and the District of Columbia. Survey findings show that the combination of faculty vacancies (432) and newly budgeted positions (350) points to a 12% shortfall in the number of nurse educators needed. Unfilled faculty positions, resignations, projected retirements, and the shortage of students being prepared for the faculty role pose a threat to the nursing education workforce over the next five years. www.sreb.org


Tis site is quite informative....

[liberalnurse]

6. This is my plan....

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/Backgrounders/facultyshortage.htm

<snip>

Higher compensation in clinical and private-sector settings is luring current and potential nurse educators away from teaching.

According to the 2001 National Salary Survey of Nurse Practitioners completed by ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners magazine, the average salary of a master's prepared nurse practitioner working in her/his own private practice was $78,217. In contrast, AACN reports that master's prepared nurse faculty across all ranks earned an annual average salary of $60,831. www.advancefornp.com/npsalsurvey.html and www.aacn.nche.edu

Ya got to go where the gusto is......

[bleedingheart]

7. how about we educate people here to become nurses first?

I hate to say this but there are people here in this country who want to become nurses but they don't have enough money to return to school...some need help living while they do their clinical and lab work...you can't hold a normal job that will feed you while studying nursing... plus some women and men need help with child care...

My sister teaches nursing and they have found that its lack of funding that keeps some people from pursuing nursing.

My sister and her colleagues pitched in to help one person get the lab coat and other essentials one semester because this person was struggling financially but a very very bright student...

[Indiana_Dem]

8. That's why I've been looking very closely at the

candidates' platforms on education and childcare issues. If people had more assistance with these things, they would have more nurses as well.

I'm an RN with an A.S. in Nursing. I couldn't have gone without the Pell Grant and some state assistance. I was 27 when I started college and had 3 children with one in college at the same time. We struggled but it paid off. Like I said, I couldn't have done it without the grants. I want others to have the same oportunity and more. That's what makes people less reliant on welfare and the like. Many people are willing if they have the means.

I agree with needing more teachers, too. A few years back they downsized classes because there weren't enough teachers and enrollment was down. I was told last week by some co-workers that there is a waiting list to go to some local colleges' nursing programs now.

[mopinko]

10. if you don't mind my asking

how much do nurses get paid these days? i have an older sister that was a nurse. she worked for a home health care service. they got squeezed to death by insurance companies on one side, and a big health care conglomerate on the other. they low balled for a couple of years, until they had squashed all the independants in the area.

[populistmom]

13. In the northeast

The starting pay is $18-25 per hour, plus an additional 15-50% for night and/or weekend shift differentials.

[sandnsea]

11. Nursing schools have waiting lists for years

My daughter started on her path to become a nurse. She had prerequisites, which they have added to each year. She just found out this year that the waiting list to get into the program in Eugene, Oregon is 2-3 years. So she's taken out 2 years of student loans only to have to wait for who knows how long to be able to actually go to work. I hope they defer her loan repayments or she's going to end up defaulted working at $7.00 an hour and won't be able to finish at all. And importing nurses will just hurt our nurses more, we've already seen it. Our country is a fucking mess, that's the problem.

[populistmom]

12. Amen!!!

I just finished all my prerequisites for nursing school and I applied to two schools. I have an extremely slim chance of actually being able to start this Fall and will likely have to wait until 2005. Most of it is because the programs are underfunded by the state. Sometimes I just wish I could leave once I do get done with this and take my skills where they could be appreciated.

[TracyWSC2]

14. Nursing Shortage

There are several reasons the Nursing shortage is getting worse:

1. Nursing is a female dominated profession. Today, with so many more doors opening up to women less and less are going to nursing school. So, as older nurses leave the profession there are not enough to replace.

2. Here in the southeast starting salaries for fresh out of school RN's is $17.00 - 18.00. Salaries are a big issue.

3. Nurse/patient ratio is high in most states. Which means nurses have to take-on a LOT. Even areas that generally are considered low-tech nursing are increasingly becoming more and more high-tech. Also, nurse's DON'T have the option of walking out if we get stressed to bad on the job. Once you walk in the door you are bacially a prisoner for 8 - 12 hours (or longer if your relief calls-in sick). If you walk out your licence will be revolked for patient abandonment -- BIG NO NO

4. The reason so many Nursing programs have long list is not so much a shortage of instructors as it is Nursing programs now have to be careful about accepting student because of the increase in skill levels. I went through a University (BSN) program and they only accepted the top 50 GPA's each spring/fall. In general, a student with a "C" average GPA will find it difficult to pass the National Nursing Exam to practice.

5. Burn-out in Nursing is VERY high mostly because of sicker patient's, low pay, more and more stress, and generally being appreciated less.

I work in the Intensive Care Unit at a very larger teaching hospital and though I make fairly good money I earn every penny of it LOL

PS: I have worked with several Nurses from the UK and Asia. THe asian nurses are great but the language barrier and cultural difference really hinder them. The nurses from the UK generally are very compentent individuals.

[Malva Zebrina]

15. It has been going on for at least forty years

every time there is a shortage, foreign nurses appeared on the scene and were hired. Generally,they worked for less wages. Also, their nursing programs were not on the same level as the nursing programs in the US so they usually had to agree to take a course or two to comply wiht US standards. I am talking folks, about something that happened this way forty years ago! and it is still going on?

ONe thing the British nurses had that the US nurses did nothave then, was mid-wifery courses and certification. That was not included in the US nurse programs then. I cannot remember what it was they were lacking though. I think it was psych courses. I do know they had to take extra courses in order to be certified to work here.

[Malva Zebrina]

16. For the record I would just like to tell you how it was

in the middle ages--in the fifties. I attended a hospital school of nursing. There was an admission requirement and an admissions test. ONe had to be in the top one quarter of their graduating class in order to be admitted to the school. It was a very highly rated school, so that it could demand it's admissions follow these requirement.

Of course, it was hospital run and connected and one was under the complete control of the hospital. The dormitory doors were closed as 7pm and one had to be inside the dormitary then, If not, you had to ring the bell and the house mother would admit you. A note then went home to your parents telling them that you were late. ONce a week, you were allowed to be out -- that was on a Wednesday evening and you HAD to go to the convocations--which was usually a concert--of classical music played some]where in the hospital.

When you got to be a senior, after working for the hospital for three years, often eight hours duty on the floor as well as four hours in the classroom, you got different priviledges and did not have to be in the dorm at 7pm.

You , if you were successful after six months got "capped" in a ceremony that was very serious and your parents attended this ceremony. You got your nurse's cap while holding a Florence Nightengale type of a candle. It had NO black band on it yet. You only got the black ribbon on it after completion of a year and the way it was worn showed the year you were currently in. Upon graduation, you got a unique band that indicated which hospital school you gradurated from. My school had a blue and a gold ribbon and a unique way of folding the cap.

Everything was paid for--and the tuition for three years, including summers with one week vacation, was, five hundred dollars. That included books, uniforms, room and board and anything other--medical care etc. I paid for my own tuition with money I saved up while working after school in the five and ten (Woolworth)

So we have three years including summers which was equivalent to four years of a college program. The "training" was excellent with excellent instructors where I went to school. Upon completion of that program you took your "boards" in the state where you trained. New York was considered the bench mark. If you passed the boards there, you could work in any state. Other states had not as high standards.

So that was it--it was pleasant in some ways--in my class there were twenty eight girls and we were like a family. On the other hand, we were like slaves. and we did wear that "cute" cap, but you know, it meant something and it was something to be proud of.

Someone came along and the three year hospital schools went out of business. It became a feature of the colleges and universities. I went back to school to get the degree and it was a total waste of my time. The courses were boring and I resented the time I had spent in the hospital school not being recognized. I hated those boring courses and I had to go at night since I was working during the day and also had a family to take care of. If youwanted one of the betterjobs, you needed to have the degree. It cost me also.

That is just a thumbprint of how it was in the fifties. There is more, but I have already used up too much space.

[Beaker]

17. Good. Nursing is the growth industry of the future- or is it?

the baby boomer bubble is percolating up to the "geezer" level, and the younger generation has some of the unhealthiest eating habits in the industrialized world. For those less squeamish and empathetic than I, it's a great career-

BUT-

the barriers the article talks about will soon come tumbling down(the article is probably there to help lay the groundwork) A nursing shortage is a scary prospect for prospective oldsters, but for insurance company execs, and Health Maintenence CEO's "skyrocketing" nursing salaries(anything much above minimum wage, in their opinions) are even scarier.
Look for lots of third world nurses to be making the rounds at U.S. hospitals in the near future, and for lots less than current salaries that are being paid.

It's inevitable, and believing otherwise is wishful thinking.

[HuckleB]

19. Not necessarily.

The potential for increased lawsuits and higher malpractice insurance under such a scenario makes this not so inevitable. Those costs could more than outweigh any purported savings.

[Beaker]

20. that will probably be covered in Repug tort reform.

or- what if nurses were treated as independent contractors, with no liability for the contracting agency?
You could sue a blue-collar nurse, but whatcha gonna get?

[HuckleB]

18. The nursing shortage extends to Britain and the rest of Europe.

So it's insteresting to see them focus on someone from there. As an RN, I would want some assurance that the nurses I work with have the same level of education. It does seem that things might be a bit whacky, however. It's actually a bit whacky to move from state to state for nurses, as well as for physicians and nurse practitioners. We have to keep every syllabus from every class we ever took. It's a bit crazy.

[Malva Zebrina]

21. I think that nurses lost out because they did not organize

and they are still not organized. NOw it is too late. No blue collar workers are really ornganizes and nurse, although they would like ot call themselves professionals, are in reality blue collar workers.

I do think n urses are extremely well educated, but the problem as I see it is that they are and have always been exploited. They give a lot and do not get it back.

If I had it to do over, to tell the truth, I would go for the MD rather than the RN. In that way, at least, there is some control and some independance. As it seems to be now, RN means not much more than what it was in the fifties as I have posted above. It has not, in, other word progressed, It may have added skills, but as far as a lifetime profession for women, mainly, although there are many men now involved, it still puts you in the grips of someone else who controls your emplyment, and if they wish, they can hire from foreign countries again, as they have done for at least fifty years and these nurses will work for less than the US nurses do.

I do not know now what the salary is, but I was making 15 dollars an hour fifteen years ago in a poor state. If I would have continued to stay in New York and continured working there, I would have made three times as much.

What is the salary now?

[Bamboo]

22. Nurse eye for the sick guy.

My mother is a RN and is still working full time at 75 years old,I think her secret is to arrive early and stay late and keep things "in the family".She has told me many stories about medical incompetence until I asked her why she did not turn in anybody then the stories stopped.One was about an RN who would pay coworkers to check blood pressures or deliver pills because she was too lazy.A portable locker of narcotics was stolen but was not reported to police.I wonder if foreign nurses would report incompetence and risk losing their visa.She worked holidays so I would get Christmas early,that sparked some conversations about Santa with my friends.