Why is there a nursing shortage in Hawaii?
While the nursing shortage has begun to arrive in Hawaii, it hasn’t yet hit at the levels that the Mainland has experienced. According to the Joint Commission On Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations [JACO], there are currently 126,000 nursing vacancies unfilled in hospitals nationwide. From talking to people, they say Hawaii is about five years behind trends that happen on the Mainland. I would expect the same patterns that we see elsewhere in the nation to be hitting Hawaii in the next couple of years. JACO says by the year 2020 there will be 400,000 nursing vacancies nationwide; that is more than triple the current rate. Some of the reasons nurses are leaving, have to do with working conditions. Nurses go into nursing because they want to help people. If they are faced with terrible understaffing, they can’t provide the quality patient care that they are committed to ethically and from all of their training. One of the biggest compensation issues is building in more recognition
