[Weinstein]

I told y'all!

US Nurses will not be able to find work due to low wage foreign workers!
Tech workers (programmers, system administrators, etc) can not find work as they have been displaced by low wage imported labor.

I don't think this will happen to Drs or lawyers, but nurses are screwed!
Read this email:

zafererk <zafererk@gmx.net> wrote:

To: H1_Visa_Info@yahoogroups.com
From: "zafererk"
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 0135 -0000
Subject: [H1_Visa_Info] WE ARE CURRENTLY SEEKING APPLICANTS FOR THE....

I am seeking Registered Nurses to work in hospitals and nursing
homes here in the US. They must have graduated from a 4-year nursing
school program and meet other necessary criteria. They would be
asked to make a 3 year commitment to working here in the US. Rates
of pay are between $20-30 per hour. Nurses must also pay their own
travel costs.
The will be on a Green Card, so they CAN work permanently in the US
if they so desire. Rates of pay are incredible here for nurses...
Interested applicants, please send your resumes to
usacareer@lycos.com
Zafer Erkiletlioglu
Recruiter

Yeah, but I've been doing some research on this, and I don't think it's going to be all that effective. There are alot of obstacles that foreign nurses must overcome: language, discrimination, familiarity with technology and society, etc.

It's not by any means helping the situation, but I think that it will be a fad, as they have tried this before. (At least, I hope it's a fad! [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img])

[EntrepreneurRN]

I also have been in the nursing profession for almost 30 years. Yes, I've lived through the up's and down's of so called shortages in the past. And yes, I see there are some similarities in the Techies being outplaced by foreign techies. Yet there are some major differences in the current nursing shortage and either previous "shortages" or the techie issue. The techie issue [by the way, my husband has been affected by this, and laid off X3, so I know your pain!] is one in which an industry had exploded faster than ever anticipated, and the number of workers needed by the exploding tech companies was greater than the supply of US techies, so they "imported" more techies. (And then the demand dropped as the over-inflated tech companies went down the tubes). Previous nursing shortages were different than the current one. First, they were mostly driven by economic forces and also by the limited number of nursing students admitted to nursing programs. Yes, $$$ has always played a part in the shortage and always will. Our free enterprise system in this country is built on the laws of supply and demand. And in this shortage we have both a shortage of supply (not enough nurses) and a rapidly increasing demand (the aging baby boomers and the graying of America). These 2 forces were not present in prior shortages nor in the Techie controversy. Since we cannot stop aging (although we all wish we could) the number of Americans needing to access health care will very likely continue to increase, and we can't change that much. We can hope to put more emphasis on health and less on pathology (waiting till you become sick to seek help) and hope that will slow the "demand" portion of the equation. The other part of the equation is supply, and that is where the efforts are being focused to bring more bright, talented students into the profession. We must increase the supply. Yes, $$ enters the picture here again. Since higher salaries do lure people in, pure economics will likely continue to increase salaries in nursing. The other part of this, which others have also mentioned, is to keep nurses working in the profession. Or get nurses back to working as nurses if they've not been working in the career field. So much of the focus is on hospital nursing, which is why many nurses left "nursing" in the first place. There are lots of other places and settings for nurses to work, but hospitals are looking out for their own interests and so their efforts are to get nurses to work in hospitals. I think that much of our problem in nursing has been viewing "hospitals" and "nursing" as synonymous and mutually exclusive. When thinking about the needs of consumers and the needs of nurses, there are many ways that nurses in this country can impact the health and illness care of our fellow man which are beyond the hospital walls. This "thinking outside the box" is not typical in hospitals, since they are huge beauracracies (spelling?) and are driven by the $$ and not by what is best for patients OR nurses. We've got to stop giving the power of our profession to the hospitals. It is truly the "fox guarding the hen house" to let the hospitals try to solve the problems of the nursing professions. Look at the physicians. They work in hospitals, but they are not controlled by the hospital. Think about it!!!