(We Chinese in America Media Editor Tang Zhao, April 4, 2022) An eye-catching advertising banner hung at a southern California transportation hub is an advertisement for hiring nurses in a prestigious tertiary hospital in the area. It reads "$30,000 bonus”.( Nursing Shortgage image from Vancouver Businsess Journal)

Nurses play a critical role in any country's healthcare system. People can never avoid dealing with clinics and hospitals. We don't have to go to restaurants, opera houses, football games or temples. Although it is the doctors who place the order, it is the nurses who perform the task. But people don't understand the magnitude of the nurse shortage.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 29 million nurses and midwives worldwide, including 2.9 million in the United States, with an annual growth rate of 9%. Nursing is a special profession, it not only requires advanced knowledge of life sciences, but it also requires patience and passion for taking care of others.

Since the spread of the coronavirus in late 2019, 115,000 nurses have lost their lives in professional roles.

Before the pandemic, there were already a shortage of 6 million nurses in the world. With about 4.75 million nurses retiring within a few years, countries urgently need new blood to inject into the market, especially in wealthy countries. So many rich countries recruit talent from the Third World. The Philippines and India are the main suppliers to Western countries.

The US nurse-to-population ratio is 12/1000, which is higher than many other western countries. The treatment of nurses in the United States is not very high. According to the data in 2020, the annual average salary is about $75,000, or $36.22 per hour, and the latest data is about $40-60 per hour.

The number of nurses in the United States has been decreasing year by year, from 3.8 million in 2017 to 3 million in 2019, and to 2.9 million in 2020, but the overall population has grown by 7%.

The shortage of nurses is due to an imbalance between supply and demand. On the demand side, the post-war baby boomer generation is coming to an end, and aging means multiple chronic diseases. Coupled with the need for more services for longevity, the COVID epidemic has made it even worse.

On the supply side, manpower is insufficient and declining. The average age of nurses in the United States is currently 50 years old, and half of nurses will quit the workforce in the next 10-15 years.

Second, is workplace fatigue (Burnout). This is a top priority for many health care providers. Physical and mental stress is beyond the comprehension of outsiders. This may explain why many hospitals or nursing homes in the United States are filled with foreign nurses.

Coupled with the serious shortage of nursing education teachers, it is difficult to cultivate enough successors. It pays more to be a nurse in the field instead of being a nursing faculty member. So, there is little insensitive to be a nursing instructor. Plus, safety issues at workplaces, especially in high-risk settings such as emergency rooms, mental hospitals, delivery rooms, and operating rooms. Staff were not only verbally bullied, but even physically attacked sometimes.

(Source: World News Network)

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