Area lawmakers and health care officials fear federal officials may cut funding for hospital-based nursing schools.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said a retroactive interpretation of existing laws could cost St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica, as well as Crouse and St. Joseph’s hospitals of Syracuse, between $1.5 million and $3 million apiece for their nursing colleges.
“This cavalier, slash-and-burn attitude towards our nursing education programs is over the top and must be stopped,” Schumer said.
“At a time when we face a severe shortage of nurses and nursing faculty, the feds want to cut millions of dollars from vital hospital-based teaching programs,” he said.
As a result, Schumer introduced legislation that he says would ensure St. Elizabeth College of Nursing and the other schools will continue to get funding from Medicare.
The worry, Schumer said, stems from similar funding cuts that have taken place across the country.
St. Elizabeth, Mohawk Valley Community College and Utica College have programs to train and certify nurses.
“We do graduate a significant number of the area’s nurses,” said Marianne Monahan, president of St. Elizabeth College of Nursing.
According to the New York State Department of Labor, the Mohawk Valley needs about 50 licensed practical nurses and 150 registered nurses each year, making it a high-demand profession in the area.
Monahan said her school’s funding had not been immediately threatened, but Schumer’s legislation would allow the school protection and flexibility in the future. She added that the college could survive funding cuts, but would seriously consider the consequences of such cuts. Monahan said it would stay committed to properly training nurses because of the area’s vital need for the profession.
Casey Napoli, the employment manager at Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare, said nurses are hard to find and one of the resources that helps the hospital is local schools.
“We have connections with a number of schools in the area,” Napoli said. “One of the things we rely on is the schools around here.”
Napoli said many of her nurses are locally trained, especially registered nurses, which are particularly hard to find. Napoli said while finding nurses has always been a challenge, it may even be more so in the future.
“It’s something that has always been a challenge for us,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heard, in the coming years, with the baby boomers retiring, we’re going to need a lot of people to fill those positions.”
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