nursing shortage

This article gives what I believe to be a full picture of a part of the health care equation. A large part of the problem that I did not notice being mentioned is that a great number of current nurses are reaching retirement age. I can not even begin to undervalue nurses, medical assistants and other clinical staff, as they are the backbone of any medical establishment Though I believe that if it is possible to oversaturate the market if the nursing schools grow too large.

An estimated 116,000 registered nurse positions are unfilled at U.S. hospitals and nearly 100,000 jobs go vacant in nursing homes, experts said.

The shortage is expected to worsen in coming years as the 78 million people in the post-World War Two baby boom generation begin to hit retirement age. An aging population requires more care for chronic illnesses and at nursing homes.

"The nursing shortage is not driven by a lack of interest in nursing careers. The bottleneck is at the schools of nursing because there's not a large enough pool of faculty," Robert Rosseter of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing said in a telephone interview.