The Illinois Nurses Association testified before a state committee yesterday on the need for minimum staffing requirements and required involvement of nurses in staffing decisions. The counterargument made by hospital administrators, that increased funding of nursing education would be a better solution to the current shortage of nurses, is not supported by the facts which show that even as the number of employed nurses has been decreasing, the number of licensed nurses has actually been increasing. Members of the INA have said that as long as hospital administrators searching to cut labor costs force nurses to work long hours in understaffed units, the shortage of people willing to work as nurses will only get worse.
See "Nurses rally over job woes, staff levels", ED FANSELOW, Chicago Tribune, September 26, 2001