Nursing Shortage

THE U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and health experts recently warned Congress that the nation's pool of registered nurses would shrink steadily over the next 20 years. This crisis of epic proportions will touch every man, woman and child in America. Who will care for the elderly, the newborn, and the chronically ill? We have never seen a nursing shortage of this magnitude. Health facilities in Baltimore and throughout the state are already struggling to fill nursing positions.

Md. soldier reported killed in Afghanistan The Pentagon says a soldier from Maryland has been killed in Afghanistan. Spc. Rodrigo A. Munguiarivas, 27, of Germantown died Sunday in Bagram of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by indirect fire. Munguiarivas, a vehicle driver, was assigned to the 710th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), in Fort Drum, N.Y. Fort Drum officials said he joined the Army in April 2008 and was deployed in January.

The University of Maryland Medical System will shut the nursing home portion of Deaton Specialty Hospital and Home and shift much of the staff to Deaton's chronic care section. The change will force about 130 residents to choose new nursing homes during the next 60 to 90 days. About 10 of the 177 staff members "have not found new positions," James Warner, vice president for operations at Deaton, said yesterday. Warner said the move was "financially driven," with the nursing home section projecting an annual loss of $2.5 million.

A $1.2 million grant will help Harford Community College expand its nursing program to include an accelerated 15-month course that offers evening, weekend and online classes. The 15-month course could prepare as many as 88 nurses by 2014 in less time than the college's traditional two-year program. The Health Services Review Cost Commission, an association of area hospitals, provided the grant to address the critical nursing shortage. HCC, in partnership with Upper Chesapeake Health, will establish a pilot program to enable studies at its Bel Air campus in the Weekend and Evening Accelerated Nursing Program, which starts in May. Web-based instructional components will provide additional flexibility for students and instructors.

The 2.9 million registered nurses in the United States provide clinical care in home and hospital settings. They perform leading research into best practices in health care access, delivery, quality and safety. Nurses keep communities healthy through comprehensive public health initiatives. And, perhaps most important, they educate the next generation of nurses. Yet the profession faces a huge problem - one that could soon become a problem for all of America. A report released in March on "The Future of the Nursing Workforce in the United States" says the shortage of registered nurses could reach 500,000 by 2025.

In the autumn of 1989, Linda Haller turned in a class paper to her journalism instructor at Essex Community College. She brought a certain expertise to the topic: the nursing shortage at a local hospital where she worked.Mrs. Haller earned an A in the course and was named the school's outstanding English student the next year. She graduated from Essex and earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Baltimore -- also with top honors."Everything was wonderful," she said at her home in Havre de Grace, where she lives with her husband, Kevin, and their four children.

Donna Monius Nurse recruiter, St. Joseph Medical Center Age: 55 Years in business: 35 -- the last five with St. Joseph Medical Center. Salary: Range for a nurse recruiter in the Baltimore area is $45,000 to $70,500, with an average pay of $66,400, according to the Maryland Healthcare Human Resources Association. How she started: Graduated from St. Joseph's School of Nursing. She later obtained her bachelor's degree from University of Maryland, Baltimore County and her master's degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Moving to address a statewide nursing shortage, Carroll Community College is to break ground today on the county's first building dedicated to training nurses. The $6 million project, whose future seemed in doubt last year when it was not included in the proposed state budget, is designed to allow the college to expand its nursing program. "It's very exciting for us because it assures a constant pipeline of future nurses for the hospital," said Leslie R. Simmons, a Carroll County General Hospital vice president who spent two years with a statewide task force on the nursing shortage.

Maryland's nursing shortage is getting more severe, according to survey results released yesterday by the Maryland Hospital Association. A survey of Maryland's hospitals found 14.7 percent of nursing jobs vacant - up from 11 percent in a January survey and 3.3 percent in 1997. "It's particularly alarming to see how quickly this nursing shortage has hit Maryland hospitals," said Catherine M. Crowley, a nurse who is an assistant vice president at MHA. The MHA data was prepared to be presented today when a state commission begins considering what can be done to deal with the shortage.

In the new intensive care unit at Howard County General Hospital - where the beds will give massages, visitors can sleep on folding sofas and nurses can chart notes on computers outside the door of each room - the financial problems dogging America's health industry seem far away. The renovated ICU, which was previewed for the media this week and will open Tuesday, is the first phase of a $31.5 million expansion designed to meet the widely varying needs of the fast-growing county, including the growing number of senior citizens and the state's highest proportion of children younger than age 5. Over the next two years, the Columbia hospital, a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine, expects to unveil a larger diagnostic imaging department and an emergency department that will be three times its current size.