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Public Commentary Dear Editor: The health care industry, our legislators, and our educational institutions have done a good job in addressing the nursing shortage and have seen more interested and qualified candidates in recent years. However, the fact remains that we will never rid ourselves of the shortage, if we don't increase the supply of nursing faculty and nursing programs. Ironically, nursing schools in New York turn away thousands of applicants every year primarily, because there is not enough capacity in the system to train them. Long Island's nursing schools are certainly not exempt from this, as hundreds have been turned away in just the past few years. According to a 2005 analysis from the Center for Health Workforce Studies, as many as 2,760 or 59 percent of nursing school applicants in New York were turned away in the prior year. Furthermore, the average age of nursing faculty in our state is 57 - meaning many are winding down their careers with an eye toward retirement. Proposed state legislation, A.8645 in the Assembly and S.4994-A in the Senate, would authorize the Department of Labor to award funding to schools of nursing, educational institutions, and health care providers for the development of pilot initiatives geared toward increasing the number of nurses in New York State. Funding could be used for recruitment and retention efforts; development of new nursing programs; academic and clinical partnerships to increase the use of expert clinicians, thereby increasing faculty; and the development of much needed infrastructure, such as clinical simulation labs. Our legislators need to know just how crucial passage of this legislation is; otherwise all our efforts to date, toward reducing the nursing shortage, will be for naught. Kevin W. Dahill President/CEO Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council,
Hauppauge
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