Examining the County’s Shortage of Nurses

Re “Hospitals Need 25% More Nurses,” Oct. 26: I am a retired registered nurse, age 69, still being solicited by letters and phone calls offering me a job. There obviously is a tremendous shortage of nurses, yet I hear of no investigations about the shortage of nursing schools. My granddaughter is presently working through her prerequisites before being allowed to apply for nursing school at Golden West Community College in Orange County. Then she will be placed on a waiting list that may mean a year’s wait.

A quick look at Riverside’s and Santa Monica’s community college nursing programs seems to show a similar waiting period. I hope that you will find this subject of nursing shortages timely enough to have your investigative staff research it and write a report about it.

Janice Folick

Venice

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The county nurses need to do a little self-diagnosis when it comes to placing blame about the nursing crisis and Los Angeles County hospitals. First, their nursing union gets legislation passed that defines the “correct” nurse-patient ratio at a time when the supply of available nurses in the world could not fill those positions. And then, while patients are dying and waiting in line to be seen in an ER, the union encourages nurses to obey the law and close the beds down and report the hospital for noncompliance.

Clearly, the nurse staffing law is not about quality patient care or even safe patient care. And it is not about any of the excellent nurses that I know and have worked with. It’s about the union and its leadership.

Solomon Katz MD

Long Beach

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I agree that there is a major shortage of nurses. As a high school student aspiring to become a nurse, I feel that in order to change the ratio between nurse and patients there should be more scholarship programs offered in the field of nursing, especially in California. Most of the best nursing institutes are located out of state. As a result, aspiring nurses end up going elsewhere.

Mary Grace E. Lipana

Los Angeles