Left of College Station

Legislature Urged to Kick in Money to Stave Off Nursing Shortage in Texas

By Cindy V. Culp (Tribune-Herald staff writer)

From the Waco Tribune-Herald

McLennan Community College President Dennis Michaelis has lost count of the number of times community members have asked him to pull strings to get a loved one into the school’s nursing program.

Since the program always has more qualified applicants than slots, Michaelis said he understands the requests. But all he can do is tell people to be patient.

“President Obama can’t get your daughter into the nursing program,” he joked.

Soon, however, the program may be able to accept more students. A broad-based group of Texas organizations is asking the Legislature to allot an extra $60 million for nursing education, and MCC would be in a prime position to get some of the money.

The group, which calls itself the Texas Nursing Workforce Shortage Coalition, has members representing more than 100 organizations. They include health care organizations, education entities and business groups.

The coalition’s message is that if Texas doesn’t increase the number of nurses it graduates each year, the state soon will find itself in a crisis. Already, elective surgeries sometimes must be postponed because of the shortage. Similarly, some hospitals have had to temporarily close their emergency rooms due to a lack of nurses, the coalition says.

Last year, the demand for full-time registered nurses in Texas exceeded the supply by 22,000, coalition figures show. By 2020, that gap will balloon to short of 70,000 if nursing education programs are not expanded, according to the coalition.

Plenty of Texans want to become nurses, coalition officials said. Last year alone, more than 8,000 qualified applicants were turned away from Texas nursing schools due to limited space.

The additional $60 million would allow schools to hire enough nursing faculty to nearly double the number of registered nurse graduates by 2013, coalition members said. Right now, there are about 7,000 graduates each year.

Having adequate faculty is the main barrier Texas schools face in expanding their nursing programs, said Elizabeth Sjoberg, associate general counsel for the Texas Hospital Association. Schools are required to have one faculty member for every 10 nursing students — a ratio aimed at keeping patients safe while students do hands-on work at health care facilities.

That ratio means major money is needed to achieve significant expansion, said Jennifer Banda, senior director of governmental relations for the Texas Hospital Association.

That is especially true because schools must offer high salaries to compete with private-sector paychecks for nurses, she said.

If the $60 million is approved, both public and private schools would be able to apply for a share.

“It’s sort of a jump-start to put the trajectory of nurses on par with the population growth in Texas,” Banda said.

If money becomes available, it would go a long way toward MCC’s goal of doubling the size of its nursing program, Michaelis said. That was one of the things the school promised when it asked the community to approve a $74.5 million bond package in 2006.

The school’s plan for doing so is slow, however, Michaelis said. The high staff-to-student ratio causes the program to lose $555,000 annually. Because of that, MCC can afford to hire only one additional nursing instructor per year, meaning it can add only 10 students annually.

The program currently graduates 120 nurses per year. The goal is to increase that to 240.

Increasing the nursing program’s size will directly benefit local residents, Michaelis said. A study the school did in preparation for the bond election found that 67 percent of local nurses graduated from MCC, he said.

Scott Connell, senior vice president for strategic development for the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, said because of that, the chamber is a member of the nursing workforce coalition and passed a resolution last year calling for more nurse education funding.

“We could grow health care in the greater Waco area if we could just move people through the education process faster,” he said. “(Nursing positions) are good-paying jobs in an industry that’s continuing to grow.”

Published on Tuesday, February 24, 2009