By James DeWeese
Codrington's experience and drive to help others made health care a logical career choice when the Barbados native immigrated to Queens, where she eventually became a patient-care associate with the Queens Health Network.But, Codrington said, she always wanted to move beyond the administrative work and minor medical tasks she performs at one of the health network's ob-gyn clinics.”I want to bring that Florence Nightingale feeling back (to nursing),” the 30-something Codrington said during a preregistration session in Queens Hospital Center Friday. Codrington's goal is to work as an obstetrics nurse, blending Western medical know-how with Eastern meditation, relaxation and massage.Now, thanks to a $4.5 million program created by the health network that operates Elmhurst Hospital Center and Queens Hospital Center to address a critical nursing shortage and boost retention, she and 71 other employees will see their once-out-of-reach dreams of nursing degrees come true.The ADVANCE program pays for selected hospital employees – culled from a pool of more than 500 applicants – to attend nursing school for 18 months to two years.While the nurses-to-be are studying, they will continue to receive their full salaries but be released from work so they can concentrate on their coursework. And when they graduate, the nurses will bring their knowledge back to the Queens Health Network, where they will be required to stay for double the amount of time they were in school, said program director Valerie Taylor-Haslip.Taylor-Haslip came from North Shore Medical Center to set up the program when it was nothing more than a pot of federal and state grant money and an idea to help the hospital network address a nurse shortage that is putting the squeeze on hospitals from Queens to California.More than 2.8 million registered nurses will be needed across the country by 2020, but at current enrollment rates there will be only about 2 million to meet the demand, according to the Washington-based American Association of Colleges of Nursing.In addition to reducing the overall quality of patient care, a nursing shortage threatens to drive up already inflated medical costs by sparking increased market competition for the limited pool of nurses, health-care professionals say.”There was a critical shortage at the time (the grants were written), and my guess is there still will be,” said Adam Gordon, the Queens Health Network associate director for organizational learning. “Health-care facilities across the country as well as federal and state legislatures were trying to design lots of strategies.”But there is a more personal story about the ADVANCE program, he said. “We're literally lifting families out of the poverty level,” said Gordon, who wrote the original $3 million U.S. Department of Health grant proposal. The rest of the grant monies were secured from the state Children's Heath Insurance Program.A patient-care associate earns about $20,000 a year, Taylor-Haslip said. A licensed practical nurse can earn upwards of $60,000.Taylor-Haslip, who selected candidates by applying rigorous academic and employment criteria, knows the nurses will help the hospital network improve its level of patient care.But she also knows how much the program can mean for the nurses themselves. Taylor-Haslip's mother, a nurse at Elmhurst Hospital for more than three decades, took part in a similar program in 1964.”I know that had an impact on us because when she graduated, the first thing we did was we moved to another neighborhood,” Taylor-Haslip said. “The students are already making plans to send their kids to better colleges.”The first round of 38 students – seven men and 31 women – started their program in September 2003. Two already have graduated. And a second round of students, including Codrington and 33 others, registered for their courses at a specially designed LaGuardia Community College program Tuesday. LaGuardia developed the licensed practical nurse program, the only of its kind in Queens, at the behest of the hospital network's chief executive officer, Pete Velez, Taylor-Haslip said.Codrington and fellow students Sylvania Outram, 60, Sylvester Douglas, 50, and Lovern Petrie, all said they could not have afforded to study on their own.”I always wanted to be a nurse and was always around the periphery of what I wanted to be,” said Outram, who works for the federal low-income family nutrition program, Women, Infants, Children Program. “(But) I had my family and really couldn't.”Douglas, a father of 12 from Cambria Heights, also said finding time to work, study and be with his family would have been impossible without the ADVANCE program.”I was in (a) nursing program before,” Douglas said. “But it was hard to maintain enough credits to tap into the Pell Grant,” a federal tuition-assistance program.Petrie, who worked in a nursing home in her native Trinidad, can't wait to make good on her opportunity.”Nursing is one of the greatest professions, I think,” she said. “My favorite part is seeing you get better.”Reach reporter James DeWeese by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
