What's Next? Illegal Nurses?

In what, exactly, is this country willing to invest? We've outsourced technology to India and China (did I ever mention that I am underpaid and underemployed as a result?). We've let immigrants - legal and otherwise - enter the country in droves to the point where far more than field labor is being impacted (like I've said, people were cool with "all the Mexicans" when they thought they were just replacing "lazy nigras" but now that wages for regular blue collar jobs held by other folks are being undercut, we suddenly have to "protect the borders" and deport folks). Now we don't have enough nurses and they say it is too expensive to train nurses here so what's the solution? Import cheap nursing labor from indigent countries?

Nathan Newman raises an interesting issue here. Democrats in Congress offered an amendment to the immigration bill currently being debated that would allow an unlimited number of foreign nurses to enter the United States, on the grounds that there's a nurse shortage in this country.

 That sounds like a good idea, but here's the problem: won't it cause an even more disastrous nurse shortage in developing countries, perhaps causing collapses in health care systems around the world? That already seems to be the case in the Philippines and India. On the broader issue, the New York Times ran a good piece a while back on the "brain drain" developing countries face when all their skilled workers leave for OECD countries. It can cause "a vicious downward cycle of underdevelopment." Not good for them, and it's hard to know what to do. Restrict immigration of skilled workers? Screw the poorer countries?

Now Newman's solution to the nursing issue seems unexceptionable—train more nurses in the United States, since there are currently more people who want to become nurses than spots in nursing school. On the other hand, for those worried about keeping health care costs down, it's much cheaper to "outsource" nursing education to the Third World, where education costs are naturally lower. Ideally, perhaps, the United States would do more to help develop the poorer countries that are sending us all their cheap labor, but that would involve more drastic changes than anything being contemplated in Congress right now.

I have nothing against immigration. I've said that before. But, before this gets turned into an "Americans don't want to be nurses anymore" con job by the healthcare industry, we need to make people aware that people do, indeed, want to be nurses. But, as one of my sorority sisters (a relatively new nurse) stated: "Problem is there aren't enough nursing educators or funds to educate these nurses. Completing Nursing School is no easy tasks for anyone. We have many professors at <...> alone who are burnt out because they are teaching two or three theory classes and clinical courses as well ... And their salaries are garbage, so almost all of them have 2nd, even 3rd jobs. It's not SAFE for more than 10 students to be in one clinical course. In my opinion there shouldn't even be that many. We can't produce nurses on a conveyor belt. "

Why aren't we willing to invest in vital and critical skill sets? You have people in America who are willing and able to study to become good nurses yet we want to outsource that so that we can get the skills on the cheap. As a result, this may also leave poorer countries without adequate health professionals and care because we are luring them all here (probably to under pay them and thereby undercut the wages of Americans who spent thousands of dollars on a quality nursing education). But then the government will want to use our tax dollars to come to the aid of these countries from whom we've poached their skilled workers. Perhaps I'd rather my tax dollars

Again, who benefits? This country? Patients? ( No offense but as attentive and patient as I am with accents and dialects, the last thing I want to do if I am very sick is try to process some foreign speech patterns? I do it all day long at work and there are times when I just have to nod and pretend I understand rather than continuing to say "I'm sorry. Excuse me?" I could end up dead doing that in the hospital). But you know who benefits! The greedy capitalists of the healthcare industry. They win, again, and regular citizens lose!

My college roommate became a nurse. The program at our university was no joke. Both of her older sisters were nurses too. I know that is a profession I still would not, could not, pursue. BUT, I should have the opportunity and this country, as the wealthiest in the world, the wealthiest in the world should have the resources (schools and adequately paid instructors) for me to do so.