Nurse shortage expected

MERRILLVILLE, Ind. -- Within the next seven years, the number of sick people in Indiana will likely stretch beyond the capacity of the hospital nursing staffs that care for them.\nThe shortage is expected to reach a critical level by 2010 as more students consider higher paying jobs with solid schedules, experts said.\n"There's been so many more career opportunities," said Ernest Klein, executive director of the Indiana State Nurse's Association. "Who wants to work nights and make $40,000 when you can be an attorney or engineer and make twice as much right out of school?"\nThe 65 and older segment of the U.S. population is expected to grow by 54 percent, or 50 million people, by 2020, according health officials.\nTo provide care for this age bracket, Indiana will need 17,000 nurses more than it is expected to have, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.\nTo address the expected shortage, nursing schools and health-care organizations have formed a consortium called Nursing NOW to provide the health industry with a broader pool of nursing candidates from which a care facility can choose.\nEmployers are attempting to entice recent graduates with loan repayment deals and other perks. Hospitals in turn plan to help by enrolling additional students.\nThe Indiana Health and Hospital Association's fourth quarter 2002 survey said there are now about 1,845 open nursing positions statewide.\n"As people stopped going into nursing and people started retiring, then vacancies increased," said Peggy Gerard, dean of the school of nursing at Purdue University's Calumet campus. "If we want to enroll additional students, we would need support from the hospitals to do so"