NURSES THE FLIGHT FROM CATAWBA

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 18, 1993                   TAG: 9301180363
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
NURSES THE FLIGHT FROM CATAWBA
THE GOVERNOR and Virginia legislators have been warned, time and again: If salaries for state workers are not improved, a brain-drain or worse in state agencies and institutions may result.
Now comes word from Catawba Hospital: So many registered nurses have left for higher-paying jobs in the past six months that the facility has been forced to close one patient floor and relocate 34 elderly patients within the hospital. Practical nurses and psychiatric aides also have quit. Moreover, a shortage of nurses is spreading throughout the state hospital system.
Olivia Garland, assistant commissioner in the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, says at stake is not just the retention of experienced nurses. Acute staff shortages could eventually affect patient care and place state hospitals' accreditation and Medicaid-eligibility in jeopardy.
Garland heads up a task force looking for "strategies" to deal with the problem but concedes that mostly what's needed is more money. Like other state programs, mental-health hospitals have been hit hard by budget cuts and freezes on state workers' pay during the past three years. She says, "When you are competing with facilities that are paying nurses $5,000 and $10,000 more, it's hard to tell an employee, `Stay and be loyal."'
The '93 assembly is expected to give state workers a modest pay increase, which Wilder supports. That will help many state agencies, as well as their employees. But it may not be enough to help state hospitals get back the experienced nurses they've lost.
Catawba is, to be sure, a special case. And the nursing crunch is an extreme case - and part of a national problem. According to a recent survey of 10,000 nurses by the Service Employees union, 69 percent report that current staffing levels in their hospital or nursing home are inadequate. Short-staffing jeopardizes the quality, in some cases the safety, of patient care, while imposing heavy stress on nurses.
The governor and lawmakers must find ways to retain experienced nurses. Beyond that, in general, they also must realize that they can't put state programs and employees on virtually a financial-starvation diet and expect it won't matter.
It matters - to them, and to citizens like the patients at Catawba, who depend on their services.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB