Nursing class in demand

Darleene Barrientos

Glendale Community College’s nursing program, tucked up on the

hillside, is somewhat hidden on campus, but not in the healthcare

community. So far, 300 people applied for fall admission to the

program, which has only 36 available seats.

The shortage of available spots is symptomatic of

nursing-education opportunities at other two-year colleges,

vocational schools, California State University and University of

California campuses, said Sharon Hall, associate dean of Glendale

Community College’s allied health program. Californians for Patient

Care, a nonprofit group advocating healthcare reform, is touring the

state to issue a challenge to foundations, major employers and

unions: Reduce the nursing school dropout rate, urge hospitals and

the governor to fund faculty and facilities, and cut the red tape.

“Our mission is to bring the conversation about healthcare back to

the patient, because the nursing shortage is so acute,” said Kristine

Yahn, executive director of Californians for Patient Care.

Nurses are needed to fill 14,000 vacancies in the state now, and

healthcare officials estimate that the vacancy rate will be 50,000 by

2010, Yahn said. The organization, which began touring the state last

week, stopped at Glendale Community College’s Allied Health Center on

Tuesday.

“The state has had a nursing shortage for years,” Yahn said.

“Fifty percent of the state’s nurses are educated elsewhere ...

traditionally, we have not trained enough nurses.”

School officials and advocates hope the tour will encourage

legislators and foundations to better fund nursing programs like

Glendale Community College’s. The college has collaborative

partnerships with Glendale Adventist Medical Center and Cal State

L.A., but will likely lose the partnership with the university

because of the lack of state funding, said Sharon Hall, associate

dean of the Allied Health Division.

Diana Perdue, 44, considered getting her nursing degree for 10

years, but began completing her prerequisites only four years ago.

When it came time to apply for a focused nursing program, the

situation looked bleak -- most nursing programs put students on

waiting lists for two to three years, and in some cases, 350 to 400

students were applying for just 25 to 40 seats.

Perdue was luckier than most because she has worked for Glendale

Adventist Medical Center for the past 22 years as a respiratory

therapist and got one of the coveted spots in the nursing program

partnership between the college and her employer.

“I went to three colleges, and they each told me I would be on a

waiting list,” Perdue said. “I was very lucky to get into the

program.”

The college broke ground in April on a new allied health building

that will allow the college to double the number of nursing students

it accepts. But without more help from the state, the college faces a

shortage -- not just in facilities, but in qualified instructors as

well.

“I just hope the solutions proposed in the shortage are flexible

enough and not a cookie-cutter solution,” Hall said. “We need to

maintain the quality of our nurses. It’s not enough to have enough

nurses -- we need to have competent nurses.”

* DARLEENE BARRIENTOS covers education. She may be reached at

(818) 637-3215 or by e-mail at darleene.barrientoslatimes.com.