Indiana – Nurse and staffing shortage in hospitals across Indiana has been an issue for some time now, but every time we get closer to a Covid-19 wave and the numbers are rising, the problem seems to be growing causing a lot of concerns.
The pandemic itself furthers the issue as many medical care workers decided to leave their jobs in the last couple of months.
Chris Madden with Networks Connect said his staffing company branched into healthcare in March of 2020, unbeknownst to what was ahead. Primarily, they serve long-term care facilities.
The company started with only four workers and grew very quickly reaching 50 employees today.
“Staffing is it. There’s just a shortage [and it’s] highly variable. A facility will be fine one day and have an outbreak of COVID the next day,” Madden said.
The company initially helps nurses, but they look forward to expand and start with hospital staffing next year.
Hospitals are in really bad situation and almost every single hospital facility is in need of hospital staff. The demand for staff is so big that Networks Connect is about to move to new building and hire 70 additional people to support and help internally.
Registered nurses can either hold an associate’s or bachelor’s degree of science in nursing. Ivy Tech Community College is one school that graduates a lot of nurses – around 1,300 students complete an associate of science in nursing annually. That makes up about 32% of all new registered nurses in Indiana each year.
While the problem is continuing in the upcoming period, we are slowly entering of what appears to be winter Covid-19 as the numbers are recently are on the rise, both on a state and national level.
