Editorial: Training more nurses in Hawaii

One of the major lessons underscored by this COVID-19 pandemic? Just how vital our health care professionals are to the well-being of our community.

From doctors, to nurses, technicians, aides and ancillary staffers, these dedicated professionals work long hours, sometimes against the odds, to care and heal.

Also underscored? Just how quickly those pools of health workers can get exhausted – particularly nurses, due to a chronic nursing shortage exacerbated by the pandemic.

So it is encouraging to see Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) establishing a new School of Nursing, to be helmed by interim dean, Carolyn Yucha, R.N., Ph.D., as the search for a permanent dean gets underway this spring. HPU’s new school will grow its range of nursing programs and degrees — and help address Hawaii’s high demand for training that chronically goes unmet.

In addition to HPU, the University of Hawaii system and Chaminade University have nursing schools. But year after year, thousands of eager students apply for nursing programs here — lamentably, too many quality aspirants are denied admissions because of too few instructors. Normally, about 45% of nursing applicants are admitted into programs yearly, the Hawaii State Center for Nursing has said — but last year, that dropped to just 29%.

That’s an unacceptable situation — particularly alarming as the pandemic revealed shortages in nursing and other health-care workers.

The strain on medical staffs amid relentless COVID-19 hospitalizations — acutely felt during the delta variant surge in July and August — prompted the state to seek emergency backup from fly-in nurses. Luckily, federal funds were available then to bolster Hawaii’s struggling health system with about 700 temporary medical professionals.

Now, the omicron surge is putting Hawaii on the brink, again. Hospitals have been anxiously awaiting federal aid to bring in more than 900 temporary health-care professionals: This weekend, still pending funding but due to urgent need for care, 250 mainland workers — mostly nurses — will be arriving, with another 250 coming next weekend.

This week, The Queen’s Medical Center declared an internal state of emergency for both its Punchbowl flagship and West Oahu facilities, after the rate of hospital admissions outpaced the number of available beds. This occurred as health-care providers — nursing and ancillary — were out due to COVID-19 exposure.

Clearly, Hawaii needs to increase its ability to nurture a homegrown nursing corps, well beyond this pandemic. Continual growth of robust nurse-training pipelines statewide will, in turn, help keep Hawaii healthy.