The Oregon House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill on Friday that aims to show support for nurses amid an ongoing statewide shortage.
House Bill 4003 directs the Oregon State Board of Nursing to issue nurse internship license to qualified applicants. This would allow for nurse interns to practice with certain qualifications and under the supervision of registered nurses.
The bill, which will now go onto the Senate, also looks to extend a provision put in place during the pandemic which allows emergency licensure of nurses an additional 90 days following the end of the state’s public health emergency declaration set to end on April 1.
“The pandemic has uncovered a long-suffering healthcare system that privileges profits before patients and unsafe nurse staffing algorithms that determine the fewest possible nurses to cover the maximum number of patients,” said Dr. Diane Solomon, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner representing the Oregon Nurses Association in written testimony to the legislature. “Although healthcare was a slowly brewing crisis prior to COVID-19, it is now a pandemic in its own right, with up to forty percent of nurses leaving acute care, staffing that makes it impossible to meet basic needs of patients for assessment, cleanliness, and feeding (let alone acute and complex medical care) and nurses literally dying by infection, suicide, or overdose.”
According to Solomon, HB 4003 will help meet needs of recruitment as well as retention of a veteran, experienced workforce with essential skills in nursing.
By Jennifer Williams
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