Virginia is facing a shortage of more than 17,000 registered nurses, and we’re not the only state facing this – and naturally, the response of the Trump administration is to make it harder for students pursuing degrees in nursing, because the MAGAs don’t care about whether the rest of us have access to basic healthcare.
The folks running Virginia care.
“At a time when the federal government is cutting funding and putting access to healthcare coverage at risk, Virginia is investing in our healthcare workforce and making sure our nurses have the support they need to care for Virginians. To the nurses who show up every day for their patients, our message is clear: We have your backs,” said Gov. Abigail Spanberger, whose office announced today that that the Virginia Nursing Workforce Center has awarded $1.3 million in scholarships and incentives that will help 350 prospective nursing students get their educations.
Doing the quick math, 350 is 2 percent of 17,000, but hey, it’s a start.
The bad news here is, projections by the healthcare industry tell us that the shortages are only going to get more pronounced over the next decade, with education costs continuing to spiral out of control, and the money available drying up, because the administration and Congress are spending it on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
Virginia, which is run a tad bit more responsibly, passed bipartisan legislation this year to create the Virginia Nursing Workforce Center and to streamline grant funding that had not been reaching students due to unnecessary red tape.
The General Assembly has appropriated scholarship funds for students enrolled in nursing education programs dating back to 1958, but the Youngkin administration, falling in lockstep with the MAGAs in DC, threw up roadblocks to getting it into students’ hands.
Which is a smart thing to do – we already have a dramatic shortage in nurses, let’s do nothing about it, and in fact, make it worse.
“When there are not enough nurses, people feel it. They wait longer. They travel farther. And the nurses who are already there are asked to carry even more,” Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marvin B. Figueroa said.
“These scholarships and incentives are another way the Spanberger administration is working to change that and help more Virginians get into nursing, stay in nursing, and train the next generation of nurses,” Figueroa said.
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Chris Graham
