Arkansas Blog

This peculiar and synchronistic. Yesterday my partner was at that hospital with her mother who had surgery early yesterday. She had to stay by her all day because of a nursing shortage at Wash. Regional. Partner is an RN. No beds were available due to a shortage of nurses to monitor patient beds even though the surgery had been scheduled for 3 weeks. By 6:00 pm a recovery bed was made available.

I doubt WRMC hospital is very different from other city hospitals and private hospitals. While Darth and Monkey Boy have us spending our future in Iraq our hospitals and the needed staffing have gone wanting. A hard wind is gonna blow. They did the Iraq Lie just when millions upon millions will be hitting Medicare age. Great timing eh. The consequences are going to be serious and far reaching. Wonder if old Tim Russert ever figured on that one. Nah, why bother when he could grill HRC about the great right wing conspiracy.

Pray tell, how is the federal government responsible for not having enough nurses at a not-for-profit hospital?

Allow me to serve you, ARR:

1) Funding the war and the VP's company's no-bid contracts.

2) Funding the "make the rich richer" tax scheme.

From Duke University, the answer to your question.

On August 1, 2002, President Bush signed the Nurse Reinvestment Act into law. The bill authorized the creation of programs designed to combat the nursing shortage in the United States. There are currently 126,000 vacant nursing positions resulting in overworked nurses and poor patient care. The bill was sponsored by Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Kery (D-MA), Jeffords (I-VT) and Hutchinson (R-AR and received bipartisan report.

In January 2003, Senator Mikulski proposed an amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2003 that authorized $20 million in new funding for Nurse Reinvestment Act programs. The bill was cosponsored by 11 other senators, mostly Democrats. On January 24, the Senate approved the bill with Mikulski's amendment. However, nursing advocate groups like the American Nurse's Association are still seeking $250 million in funding for all of the programs authorized by the Act.

Current Focus of Administration and Legislature

The war in Iraq is the main focus of the administration right now. Bush is concentrating his energies on fighting the war and on international relations. He recently asked Congress for $75 billion for fighting the war on Iraq. Attention as well as funds are being aimed at Iraq which is not good for supporters of the Nurse Reinvestment Act. On the home front, Bush's budget proposal for FY2004 includes a $726 billion tax cut along with major cuts to various health care programs such as Medicaid. The Nurse Reinvestment Act received no new proposed funding for FY2004.

In Congress the Republicans are busy trying to push the President's budget proposals through the House and Senate while the nation is distracted by war. It's not that they are opposed to the Act; it's that they are focused on other concerns. Meanwhile the Democrats are busying themselves mostly by fighting the proposed tax cut. On March 26 the Democrats, with the help of three Republicans, won a victory by having the tax cut reduced to $350 billion. Now they intend to focus their efforts on the rest of Bush's proposals.

http://www.duke.edu/web/pps114/policy2003/2c/expect.htm