Hospitalsin every corner of the country are once again buckling under the weight of thecoronavirus. But unlike earlier surges when intensive care capacity flexed togrow the number of available beds or acquire additional ventilators, thechallenge for health systems today is neither space nor supplies—it’s staff.
Evenbefore the coronavirus, US hospitals were short about 200,000 nurses. Thesituation is far worse today. One survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found3 in 10 health care workers are considering or already have left the bedside.Nurses are superheroes of this pandemic. But they’re not superhuman. Tired andtraumatized after more than a year on the front lines, nurses are vacating thepractice in historic numbers.
Absenta massive infusion of qualified nurses, patient care—and, crucially, patientoutcomes—will plummet because nurse staffing directly influences patientmortality. Increasing a nurse’s workload by just one patient increases patientmortality by 7 percent.
Hospitalsneed reinforcements. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services hasapproved green cards for at least 5,000 qualified, skilled internationalnurses. These nurses all have sterling clinical records and have passed Englishlanguage tests, but they cannot emigrate because their visa processing hasstalled at the final step due to a bureaucratic backlog.
Underthe US State Department’s visa processing schedule, there are four priority tiers.Nurses are fourth—dead last—in this framework. In practice, it means they’re atthe end of a very long, slow-moving line. Meanwhile, ICU beds are filling, andhospitals are struggling to staff them.
TheDepartment of State must fast-track nurse visa processing. American patientsdeserve nothing less.
Weurge you to take just a few minutesand contact your elected representatives in Washington and ask them to elevatethis issue with the State Department so we can expediate the approval of thesedesperately needed nurses.
ContactYour House member:
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Contactyour Senator:
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm