NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Governor Josh Shapiro’s new proposed Pennsylvania budget includes $5 million to help educate, train, and recruit nursing professionals in the Commonwealth, and the governor was at Temple University on Thursday to promote the investments.
“Hospitals across the Commonwealth report that 14% of their nursing jobs are vacant at any given time. That means our nurses are stretched thin,” said Shapiro. “They're working double shifts, or they're covering more patients than maybe is ideal.”
Research shows that in the next five years the United States will need to hire over 1 million nurses to meet demand, as nearly 900,000 nurses will retire or leave the field over that five year period.
Temple Health’s Nurse Scholar Program partners with local nurse education programs to then offer guaranteed job placements to nursing students after they graduate, helping them with tuition along the way. Shapiro said it’s a model he wants to emulate across the Commonwealth.
“Hospitals win because they get a guaranteed workforce of trained nurses that they can rely on, and nursing students win because they get their costs offset for their education, and they know they've got a path to success in the field that they love,” he said.
Last year, Shapiro’s administration invested $2 million to create the first-ever registered apprenticeship program for nursing in Pennsylvania.
“We now have 27 registered apprenticeship programs for nursing in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” said Shapiro. “We've also made it easier for nurses who have trained and worked in other states to practice here because we joined the Nurse Licensure compact alongside 40 other states.”
Since launching last year, Temple’s program has received nearly 200 applications from students at 18 partner schools.
Nursing student Maura Cabry went through the program and will be starting her professional nursing career this summer at Temple. She said the program was a life changer.
“The burden of student loan debt is something many of us fear, but knowing that I have a position guaranteed here at Temple, with the added benefit of having my student debt paid back, has completely transformed the trajectory of my career and my life,” said Cabry.