Covering the nursing shortage crisis and emerging trends in nursing education

Imagine this look on my face... "Are you friggin kidding me?!?!?!"

That's me. Right now. After reading that Rhode Island Hospital sent a recruiting team to India last September to find nurses to relieve their nursing shortage crisis.

I thought for a moment that I had just stumbled across another piece in the news about how there aren't enough nurses to care for the growing population of elderly people and that there aren't enough nurse educators to train students to become certified nurses, RNs or MSNs. But as I neared the end of this article on The Pawtucket Times website, the last paragraph honestly floored me:

One hospital has turned elsewhere to meet its needs. Rhode Island Hospital executives went on a recruiting trip to India last September to seek nurses. Thirty nurses signed agreements to work at the hospital, said Louis Sperling, Rhode Island Hospital's vice president of human resources, who went on the trip. The nurses could arrive before the end of this year, he added.

This is scary on so many levels - especially after learning that starting salaries for nurses set by the government run about $190 per month according to the Indian Nursing Council.

A response to the article on the Pawtucket Times website had an interesting idea: Maybe it would be cheaper for everybody if we just shipped the elderly and medically indigent off to India for medical treatment.