California: Board of Supervisors fear nurse shortage in Kern County

Saturday, July 30, 2005: California: Board of Supervisors fear nurse shortage in Kern County:"The Kern County Board of Supervisors recently outlined what they referred to as nurse staffing shortages that threaten to interrupt operations at Kern County Medical Center. Although some KMC trauma patients have had to be diverted to other hospitals, authorities said no deaths have been reported. The nursing shortage is due in part, officials contend, to California AB 394. The statute, which was signed into law in October of 1999, established a call for minimum and specific nurse-to-patient ratios. After a long period of review, actual ratio numbers were formalized in January of 2004."
http://www.ridgecrestca.com/articles/2005/07/24/community_events/local01.txt
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Andrew Lopez, RN
http://www.nursinga2z.com

The only reason that the county of Kern can't get nurses to work is Pay! The other local hospitals are currently paying 8-10% more have time and a half after 8 hrs and have better benifits than the county. The other hospitals are currently in negotiations with a tentative agreement for 23-28% pay increases along with an increase in retirement ect..., and the county wants to decrease our retirement and health care benifits in our contract. The majority of nurses at KMC Hve been there for many year and are awaiting retirement. In my unit alone we have 6 that will retire in the next 2-3 years. That is a quarter of our staff. If they want more Nurses they are just going to have to pay the price. We support about a third of our work force as travlers.