PUBLISHED 7/15/08 ----

Kudos to state Sen. Roy Ashburn, whose bill designed to alleviate California’s critical shortage of nurses recently passed the Senate.

Ashburn’s SB 1620 addresses the shortage of nursing instructors in community colleges by eliminating restrictions that make the hiring and retention of nursing faculty difficult.

The number of part-time instructors at California community colleges is currently capped, but Ashburn’s bill exempts nursing faculty from regulations that dictate a specific proportion of full-time to part-time faculty. The bill also halts  limits on the number of semesters part-time faculty can teach.

Nurses can earn far more in the practice of medicine than in teaching, so the incentive to do so is absent. The Bakersfield-based state senator’s bill makes the option of doing both more realistic.

Another nursing-related bill, also authored by Ashburn, passed last month. SB 1621 extends eligibility for student loan forgiveness programs to experienced registered nurses who want to teach. Both measures move on the Assembly, and if signed by the governor, would become law on Jan. 1.

 Unless such laws are enacted, the Central Valley, as well as much of Northern California, will have 30 percent shortfall of registered nurses by 2030. Los Angeles will need to fill 20,000 full-time-equivalent RN vacancies. And the situation will be worse still in the state’s northernmost counties.

Two other bills pending in the Legislature would help. AB 211 promotes the involvement of public-health officers in land-use decisions and AB 1472 would help public-health agencies and community organizations evaluate land-use decisions.

We encourage the Legislature to approve all four bills.