1/10/08

CCTC addresses critical nursing shortage
By Jerriod Grizzle

Submitted Photo

CEO of Clarendon Memorial Hospital in Manning, Ed Frye speaks at CCTC last Thursday about the shortage of nurses in the state and Clarendon County. Frye said that more and more nurses in South Carolina are being hired from other countries and other states.

Last Thursday community and hospital leaders from Kershaw, Sumter, Lee and Clarendon counties met at Central Carolina Technical College in Sumter to discuss concerns about the nursing crisis in the five-county area and the state as a whole.

Hospitals are facing a shortage of healthcare workers. That shortage threatens to drive up the cost of services and bringing down the access to quality healthcare.

Edward Frye, CEO of Clarendon Memorial Hospital started with the fact that 43 percent of CMH nurses do not live in Clarendon County. He compared the labor pool to that of Lake Marion’s current condition.

“We are beginning to see stumps,” he said.
It is becoming difficult to get nurses to stay in South Carolina because of other states that offer incentives for nurses to work elsewhere.

South Carolina’s number of nurses has grown but it is at a slower pace than it needs to be. The growth rate, starting in 2005, has slowed to only 3 percent per year.

Frye said that more and more nurses in South Carolina are being hired from other countries and other states and that it was imperative to keep nurses in the area.

Clarendon Memorial Hospital has even gone so far as to give $2,000 a year in scholarship money to nurses for two years to attend school.

“When nurses graduate from a health profession-based program, we ask that they return to the hospital for each of those two years,” he said.

Frye said that the nurses returning to work at the hospital are paid the same salary without deduction of funds.

“Our goal is to keep them here.”

Frye said if the cost of nursing school goes up, the hospital would increase the amount of funds that the scholarship provides.

“Anyone who has been accepted to a program can get a scholarship,” he said.

CMH has 5-7 graduates coming to work at the hospital per year.

Other programs are available including those for medical students and current employees who want to further their education.

Despite the recession in the economy, nursing salaries are at an all time high. Kershaw Medical Center President Donnie Weeks credited nursing as being recession proof as its growing salaries make the profession that much more attractive.

Weeks stated that no matter how the technology and the pharmacological realms advance, “the human component” could not be replaced.

Hospital payrolls in South Carolina represent a $2 billion portion of the state’s economy.

Frye said that nurses and the health care industry is one of the only things propping up the job market.

Tuomey Healthcare Systems CEO and President Jay Cox called on the crowd and representatives to support a cigarette tax increase, which he said, could bring “many millions of dollars” into the state’s budget.

“For each pack of cigarettes, the healthcare costs to the community are four to five times the price of the pack,” Cox said. “Every dollar the state puts in Medicaid [tax money from cigarettes], the federal government matches that amount with $2.70.

Cox said that money from the increased taxes could be part of the solution to the crisis. He said the money could go to fund the addition of nursing instructors, facilities and programs.

Despite the shortage of nurses across the state, the five-county areas seem to be in relatively good condition for the time being.

Frye said that CMH had one of its best years within the past five years. The hospital is almost fully staffed.

Cox said that Tuomey only had the need for 20 nurses. Tuomey has grown from 266 beds to 301 beds in the past year.

Weeks said that Kershaw had a total of 25 openings but that the hospital has had a fast growth rate over the past year.

One of the most plausible solutions was the expansion of Carolina Technical College. Tim Hardee announced at the meeting that the school is slated to receive $598,000 in federal funds this year from a bill recently signed by President Bush. The money will go toward a new building to house the new health and sciences program.

According to Hardee, the construction for the new campus in downtown Sumter will begin in the fall and is scheduled to open in the fall semester of 2009.

“We only have 60 graduates per year and we are hoping to have 100 per year with the additional building,” he said.

Physical therapy assistant and occupational therapy classes are slated to be added to the curriculum.

“We only have 80 percent of what is needed in the nursing industry and we want to meet that challenge,” he said.

The growth of CCTC brought to light another problem facing the healthcare industry: the decline of nursing faculty population.

Nursing faculty is the cornerstone for increasing the supply of nurses of all types.

“Everyone mentioned current job openings that addressed shortages of one kind or the other but another shortage that is critical is an absence of faculty members,” said Hardee.

For nurses to teach they must have a master’s degree. As of 2007, only eight percent of all nurses had a degree to teach.

“It is always a struggle for us, the faculty has to grow along with us,” he said.

Budgets are a problem for South Carolina’s colleges. Nursing programs around the state as far back as 2000 had 30 vacant teaching positions while 60 other faculty members had announced plans to retire within the next five to ten years.

There is a continuing struggle to match salaries of nursing faculty to those of physicians and nurses who make much more.

“We have to increase the funds to match those of regular nurses and make teaching more desirable,” said Hardee. “It is something we have to do.”

Faculty shortages create waiting lists for courses at many colleges like CCTC, requiring students to travel to other campuses, put off their education or choose another career path all together.

CCTC has even turned away acceptable applicants because of space and faculty constraints.

Part of the reason for such concern over the outcome of the health care system over the next ten years is the predicted increase of senior citizens from northern states.

Filling vacancies for nurses is a major step toward answering the crucial question: Will South Carolina have enough nurses to support an increase in healthcare usage?