With great fanfare--much like landing on an aircraft carrier and declaring,
Mission Accomplished--on August 1st, 2002, George Bush signed the
Nurse Reinvestment Act into law.
When funding allocations were made in February 2003, the act received less than half of the funding it needed.
On August 1, 2002, President Bush signed the Nurse Reinvestment Act into law. The bill authorized the creation of programs designed to combat the nursing shortage in the United States. There are currently 126,000 vacant nursing positions resulting in overworked nurses and poor patient care. The bill was sponsored by Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Kery (D-MA), Jeffords (I-VT) and Hutchinson (R-AR and received bipartisan report.
In January 2003, Senator Mikulski proposed an amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2003 that authorized $20 million in new funding for Nurse Reinvestment Act programs. The bill was cosponsored by 11 other senators, mostly Democrats. On January 24, the Senate approved the bill with Mikulski's amendment. However, nursing advocate groups like the American Nurse's Association are still seeking $250 million in funding for all of the programs authorized by the Act.
http://www.duke.edu/...
If you've ever been a patient in a hospital you'll know the only thing that separates you from severe pain and hardship or even death, is a nurse. A well trained nurse.
Trust me, I know. I've been a patient.
As a patient, you're reduced to a sorry state of dependency--stripped of independence and dignity. You cede all control to your medical masters--and pray.
The cover of the May, 1st edition of Time Magazine took note of the primal fear we should all feel entering an American hospital. The cover story was entitled:
Q: What Scares Doctors? A: Being the Patient
What Insiders Know About Our Health-Care System That the Rest of Us Need to Learn
How does the devastating shortage of nurses impact your health and mine?
How do the Republicans who run our government plan on addressing this enormous problem. Adequate funding for the much heralded Nurse Reinvestment Act? Nah.
This is the cure for the frightening shortage of nurses according to our friend Sam Brownback:
AMERICA has a nursing shortage, so Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has the perfect solution: imports. His provision in the Senate's immigration bill would waive the ceiling on the number of foreign nurses who can immigrate. Most come from poorer countries like the Philippines and India.
http://www.boston.com/...
Republicans refuse to adequately fund the Nurse Reinvestment Act :
On June 24, the House of Representatives passed the fiscal year (FY) 2006 House Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) Appropriations bill by a vote of 250-151, which included a devastating cut of $670,000 from the Nurse Reinvestment Act and the other nursing programs at the Health Resources and Services Administration. This is the first time in three years, since enactment of the Nurse Reinvestment Act, that the House of Representatives has not provided increased funding to address the nursing shortage. Although this cut is a blow to the nursing community, patients, and the nation's healthcare system, the action now turns to the Senate, where on July 12, the Senate LHHS Appropriations Subcommittee will take up its version of the bill.
http://www.ons.org/...
The Republican solution to this huge crisis? The New York Times got this one right:
The idea of the richest country in the world skimming the scant cream off the health care staffs of poor countries is disturbing. No one wants to close the gates to a skilled population of people. This page, which has argued that unskilled illegal immigrants should be given a path to potential citizenship, is not going to say that nurses from the Philippines should receive less favored treatment. But it is incumbent on the United States to start trying to solve this problem on its own.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Hey, America, there's no money. It always comes down to those pesky tax cuts for the top 1%. Isn't the nurse shortage a national security issue?
One of the first and most obvious fixes is increased government spending on nursing education -- particularly the training of professors of nursing. The Nurse Education Loan Repayment Program, which provides financial aid to students who agree to work after graduation in places that have a critical shortage of nurses, was able to pay for fewer than 20 percent of the applicants in 2005. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that more than 30,000 qualified students were not admitted last year because of a lack of space and faculty.
More Republican deceit. Add the Nurse Reinvestment Act to other GOP happy face legislation like:
Clear Skies Initiative
Healthy Forests
NCLB
Medicare Modernization Act
. . .and one of my personal favorites, the infamous Enzi Bill happy-faced as: Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act.
Nothing but Republican bullshit. What happened to all the compassionate conservatives?
Hey, Dems, Americans love nurses. Isn't this a Democratic issue for 2006?