Nursing shortage spurs ingenuity

The impetus for the grant, Peninsula Health Care District Chair Susan Scott said, was simple.

"It's difficult to recruit nurses into the area because of the housing prices," she said. "The average age of nurses is getting older and [the district] needs to look down stream for replacements."

Peninsula Health Care District oversees both Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in San Mateo and Burlingame. Those two hospitals consistently have 15-20 nursing vacancies out of 800 positions, according to Diana Russell, vice president of acute services. While those numbers may not point to a crisis, they mean longer hours and overtime for current nurses and temporary stopgap measures like filling vacancies during the busy winter season with traveling nurses who often require higher pay. Those conditions, nursing experts say, create working conditions in which the quality of patient care suffers.

The nursing shortage began after the health care industry cut nursing jobs in the early- to mid-90s in response to managed care and increased corporatization of health care, according to California Nursing Association spokesperson Charles Idelson.

"There's been a real transformation of our health care," Idelson said. "The idea of health care as a community resource, where decisions were made by doctors and nurses, is long-gone. Instead, decisions are made by corporations and Wall Street speculators."

But downsizing caused by managed care did not occur to the degree once expected, Russell said. Instead there has been a backlash caused by the Bay Area's high cost of living and exploding job opportunities for women. Now, last decade's downsizing means hospitals are often scanning the radar for new nursing recruits.

"In-state nursing programs haven't seen an increase and production hasn't been able to keep up with demand," Russell said, referring to nursing program graduates.

Now, hospitals like Mills-Peninsula are offering additional on-the-job training, sign-on bonuses for taking specialty jobs, employee referral bonuses and tuition support for staff training to retain and attract on-staff nurses, Russell said. Russell added that the center is also hosting career days for high school students who may be interested in the health care profession.

"We're trying to approach not only today's need but how can we recruit more high school students and others who may be looking for a change of career," Russell said.

The district's grant to the College of San Mateo will expand the college's two year associates in nursing degree. The current program accepts 36 students a year.

The additional money, CSM Nursing Program Coordinator Ruth McCracken said, will pay for an additional instructor and lab facilities to expand enrollment to 48. The health care district will also provide $1,000 scholarships for students who agree to work at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in either San Mateo or Burlingame.

Although she is already one semester away from graduating, president of the student nursing program Julie Bruemmer said she thinks expanding the program can only help the tight nursing situation.

Bruemmer, 24, said she was drawn to nursing because her grandmother was in the profession. After high school, Bruemmer worked briefly at Costco then joined the CSM program six years ago. She now works as a surgical technician at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame.

"I went to a job fair two months ago, and they were begging us to come work for them," she said. "Every department is hiring now. It's very exciting."