Alabama nursing group asking for recruitment and retention funds

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - The Alabama State Nurses Association sent a letter Thursday to the Joint Committee on American Rescue Plan Act Funds to invest more money into recruiting and retaining nurses in the state.

“We’re not recruiting new people in the profession and the people we are training here -- we train a lot of nurses in Alabama -- are leaving,” said Dr. Laura Hart, the executive director of the nursing group.

She says 44% of the nurses in the country are 55 and older while only 1% is 25 and younger, which puts the future of the field in a difficult position.

Dr. Hart says they surveyed around 3,500 nurses in the state, resulting in three main complaints.

“Number one is staffing which is a problem due to number two was increased pay and then they feel undervalued by their employer,” she explained.

The letter sent cited that the Alabama Hospital Association is asking for more ARPA funds and ASNA would like some of the money to help nurses.

“The Alabama Hospital Association (ALAHA) is requesting additional American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to prevent the closure of rural hospitals, citing a $1B shortfall due to wage increases. These wage increases are the result of inadequate attention to the needs of permanent nursing staff in favor of a short-sighted approach to hospital staffing with more expensive travel nurses. The Alabama State Nurses Association (ASNA) does not want to see any hospital closures; that would limit healthcare access to rural Alabamians. However, indiscriminate funding of our hospitals is not a sustainable nurse staffing solution if nurse retention continues to be ignored. ARPA funds must be directed to retain full time, permanent hospital-based RNs in the state. ASNA requests that any funds disbursed to ALAHA require that at least 50% of those monies be used specifically for retaining full-time, permanent, front-line nursing staff in Alabama hospitals through direct payments to these nurses. Full transparency on how these funds were used must be readily available to the public in real time.”
Dr. Laura Hart

Dr. Hart says a bump in pay would be a short-term fix but it’s all to better help healthcare workers and patients: “We want to be able to retain and recruit nurses for our hospitals. We do not want them to close. We want to be able to staff them where patients can get care.”

While the funding is much-needed, she adds more needs to be done to research and create long-term solutions to help the healthcare field.

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