Assembly GOP wants to end nursing shortage
-
- May
- 13
Saying the state’s nursing shortage is reaching “crisis proportions,” Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, announced five proposals he and his Republican colleagues are advancing.
According to the Health Care Association of New York State, four out of five hospitals in the state are facing a nursing shortage.
“New York’s nurses serve on the ‘front lines’ in administering quality, compassionate medical care in our hospitals, nursing homes, schools and clinics. They are a vital resource and an indispensable link in our health care system,” Tedisco said in a statement. “However, New York is simply not doing enough to give nurses the tools and incentives they need – and rightfully deserve.”
Several of the proposals would:
—Establish a recruitment initiative and retention program to reimburse student loans if a person is a registered and licensed nurse. SUNY and CUNY would pay for a person’s education if a contract were signed to work in the state as an RN.
— Set up a program to give financial support to applicants to enter or continue in registered nurse education programs and agree to deliver care in a specialty setting or region of the state with a shortage of nurses, or to teach nursing students.
— Create a loan forgiveness program for applicants who agree to work as nurses in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice centers.
— Establish a baccalaureate and associate nursing assistance program within the state Health Department to provide loans to people pursing nursing degrees in the state. Nurses would have to teach one year for each year assistance was received.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 12:37 pm by Cara Matthews.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: | 
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
