By Kathianne Boniello
It was a peculiar gift that inspired U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to address the country’s current nursing shortage, the former first lady admitted to an adoring crowd of hospital staffers at an appearance last week at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
Clinton, who in December co-introduced legislation to give health care facilities incentives to recruit and retain nurses, made her appearance to congratulate LIJ on its track record on nursing issues.
Health care facilities across the country have been experiencing problems retaining qualified nurses and attracting new nursing students to the profession, prompting Congress to take action.
During her speech Clinton told the audience of nearly 250 that it was a constituent who moved her to help curb the nursing shortage.
“I have a pair of old nursing shoes,” Clinton said. “Not the new ones with the Velcro, the old lace-up kind.”
As the crowd laughed knowingly, Clinton said “they were given to me by an old nurse who told me ‘I can’t go on, but I’m giving you these shoes because I’m worried about who will fill them.’”
Part of the Clinton legislation, which includes a provision to develop a national nurses service corps, is to encourage hospitals and health care facilities to achieve “magnet” designation, which LIJ did in March 2001.
Magnet health care facilities — which are officially designated by the American Nurses Credentialing Center — organize care to improve patient outcomes, include nurses in a hospital’s decision-making process and give nurses the opportunity to pursue continuing education and advancement.
LIJ was the first hospital in the state to earn magnet status and North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, a part of the North Shore-LIJ Health System, was the second. Maureen White, director of nursing for North Shore-LIJ, said the system’s 18 facilities include about 7,000 nurses.
Clinton said when she sought an example of the benefits of magnet designation on patient care, “I was thrilled I didn’t have to look any further than right here.”
The senator credited LIJ’s leadership and its dedication to its nurses as an example for health-care facilities around the country to follow.
“This is really about all of you and what you do every day,” she said.” The reason I’m here is because this hospital has got it right.”
White said there is a national average vacancy rate for nurses that stands at about 15 percent compared to the North Shore-LIJ system’s 7 percent. About 42 health care facilities out of about 6,000 nationwide have been give magnet designation, she said.
“It is a calling,” White said of nursing. “The image of nursing needs to be reinvested in. We need to create a positive perception of what nurses really do.”
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
