Bush Signs Bill Addressing Nursing Shortage

In a private ceremony on Aug. 1, President Bush signed the Nurse Reinvestment Act (HR 3487 or S 1864), legislation intended to ease the nationwide nursing shortage in part by expanding loan-repayment programs, the AP/Baltimore Sun reports (AP/Baltimore Sun, 8/2). The new law will establish a National Nurse Service Corps to provide scholarships and loans to nursing students who agree to serve in a hospital with a critical shortage of nurses for two years. The law also includes a loan cancellation incentive for nurses who receive master's or doctoral degrees to teach at nursing schools. It offers nurses continuing education and geriatric training and "career ladder" programs for job advancement, as well as internship and mentor programs to "fill the void created by experienced nurses leaving the profession" (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 7/23). Kathleen Long, president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, said, "It's called the nursing reinvestment act, but it really is the patient reinvestment act." Officials maintain that without such a law, the nation could face a shortage of a half-million nurses by 2020; currently, there are 125,000 nursing vacancies. Rep. Robert Ehrlich (R-Md.) said that law is "not the end of the nursing shortage, but it's a significant policy step in the right direction." The law does not appropriate funding for efforts to combat the nursing shortage, meaning that congressional appropriators will have to determine how much the federal government will spend on each initiative (AP/Baltimore Sun, 8/2).