California is on the verge of a healthcare crisis.
In the past several years, the state has dramatically expanded access to care for millions of Californians who were previously without health insurance. While residents have benefitted from more coverage, this influx of new patients is straining hospitals and clinics, which are struggling to find enough trained doctors and nurses to meet patients’ needs.
Nursing is the single largest health profession in the state, employing more than 330,000 actively licensed nurses who earn on average $100,000 per year.
More than one-third of California’s registered nurses are over the age of 55 and expected to retire over the next several years as baby boomers exit the workforce, according to a recent report by the California Future Health Workforce Commission.
The healthcare system here is hemorrhaging trained professionals and caregivers with expertise, while demand for skilled nurses will continue to grow as our population ages and we work to expand access to care.
By 2026, California is projected to have a deficit of more than 44,000 nurses, according to the California Health Care Foundation. It’s by far the largest such deficit in the country.
About 11,000 nurses annually graduate in California. Quite simply, we are not training new practitioners fast enough to address the nursing shortage, putting the quality of care for current and future patients at risk.
To fill the void, nursing colleges like West Coast University have stepped in to ensure California has the nurses we need to meet the demands of our changing and growing patient population.
West Coast University, a nursing school founded in 1909, is based in Irvine with Southern California campuses in Anaheim, Los Angeles and Ontario. On May 19, West Coast University held a commencement for more than 900 students at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
West Coast University has played an important role in providing exceptionally trained nurses to fill the demand. The school exceeds our state’s high standards for education excellence and turns out some of the best-trained nurses in California.
As an independent member of West Coast’s board of trustees, I’ve seen firsthand how the school prepares trained nurses and high-demand postgraduate health professionals who are qualified to serve our diverse community.
What makes it a special institution is our commitment to give a quality education to underserved students. Of these students, 75% are female, and 73% identify as a minority. Their education creates a gateway to a profession that will provide lasting and meaningful wages and benefits with ample opportunities for career advancement.
Unfortunately, an unelected bureaucracy in Sacramento called the Board of Registered Nursing is on the brink of making the nursing crisis even worse by unlawfully capping enrollments at California nursing schools and leaving the state with a deeper deficit of healthcare providers.
Though they have no actual legal authority over nursing school enrollments, the BRN has gradually tried to expand its power by telling schools how many students they can serve. This bureaucratic mission creep is not only illegal, it hurts patients by limiting the number of qualified nurses entering California’s workforce.
The BRN openly states they are attempting to protect associate degree in nursing programs at community colleges. That said, it seems that the board has ulterior motives regarding intentionally capping the supply of nurses, and that very well could be with the intention of increasing nursing salaries in the state, which remain the highest in the country.
As California’s healthcare crisis grows, some schools are beginning to challenge the board’s authority, and demanding that they abide by the law as written. In response, the board is now attempting to retroactively rewrite its bylaws to give itself the authority to cap nursing school enrollments. This power grab is sure to be challenged in the courts and will put the fate of nursing programs in Orange County and across the state in limbo.
The first law of business is the law of supply and demand. At a time when demand for well-trained nurses is growing, it simply makes no sense for an unaccountable state agency to make sweeping decisions that will decrease our state’s nursing supply.
What’s truly shocking is that members of this government board don’t talk with our representatives. Frankly, the government is not listening to the private sector.
We can surmise that their antipathy may be to harm private and for-profit schools or it could be a method to boost the salaries of nurses by creating shortages.
This unelected government entity is ignoring the crisis at its doorstep, and the impacts for our families and employees could be disastrous.
The looming shortage is something we should all be concerned about. It will mean that our family members and neighbors will not receive the attention and care they need when they are sick.
Instead of trying to cut school enrollments and make our state’s nursing shortage worse, we should be working together to ensure California can continue to educate and train the nurses we need to meet patient demand.
Editor’s Note: Jim Connelly, president of Creative Teaching Press in Cypress, has worked in educational publishing for almost 40 years.
