US Needs to Import Nurses From Another Country

Union leaders of nurses say that importing workers can lower incentives to get better working conditions. Such duties are understaffing, mandatory overtime, and physically demanding work like lifting and bathing patients. To invite more nurses, wage has increased in some regions at the national level. For this reason, about 500,000 RN preferred not to practice their line of work. And according to union leaders, the economic downturn is likelihood to bring these nurses back into the field. Ann Converso, president of United American Nurses, asked "If joblessness is thorning, why do we need to import nurses from another country?" They consider thousands and thousands of RNs will respond to the job if conditions enhanced. Converso doesn't contest all overseas recruitment, but that lawmakers' focus should be on humanizing staffing ratios in hospitals to progress working environment. They have to permit nurses again to do what they do best, i.e. to care for human beings.

"There's no need to be unease regarding foreign nurses", said Mick Whitley, managing director of London-based global health-care staffing firm HCL International. Starting 2006, it’s been complicated for foreign-born nurses to acquire green cards to be able to work in U.S. The accumulation of applicant has increased as annual allocations have been attained. Whitley, a former nurse in the U.K. and Australia, said that while patients in U.S. hospitals stay and suffer from a lack of enough care, experienced and caring internationally trained nurses who want to come here to help are also coming up for a green card for as long as they have stayed in seven years. It’s good that President Obama committed a budget to expand health care. El Centro Regional Medical Center has been waiting for two years for 20 Philippine nurses recruited by them to acquire visas, according to Moore. The hospital is located in the poorest and least literate region in California, right in the middle of the desert. Moore had been victorious in hiring Philippine nurses, several of whom prefer to stay and remain in El Centro.

According to Moore, the newly graduate nurse receives $28 an hour and the experienced ones receive $35-$40. In 2002, enrollments at nursing schools have boost and more than 50,000 eligible applicants are unaccepted every year from training programs. The shortage of teaching staff at these schools is the main problem. To shove for funding from the state legislature to increase facility at Texas nursing schools, Dan Stultz, president of the Texas Hospital Assn., which represents more than 500 Texas hospitals, helped outline the Texas Nursing Workforce Shortage Coalition. There are about 22,000 nurse vacancies now in the state. The opportunities could escalate to 70,000 by year 2020.