Thank you.
No, there is no simple answer to the nursing crisis right now. The shortage is in a crisis state. It will require an increase in the education seats. It requires recruitment of nurses, perhaps of the ones who have left to come home, or perhaps of those who have retired because of the workload and the practice environment. Perhaps they could be enticed to come back if those things could be improved. Perhaps retention of those who are considering retiring in the near future is possible.
We have a higher-than-average average age in our workforce, and we need to look at the impact of those retirements on the system. I think our brief would have alluded to it, but I believe one-third of our workforce could be retiring by 2010. Those retirements are going to have a big impact, and we need to work right now at addressing that impact.
We need to look at what we can do to retain the senior, experienced nurses. Those are valuable nurses. When you think about a fast changeover, the experience that those nurses have needs to be transferred to a newer, younger workforce as well. A multifaceted approach needs to be taken, because there are a lot of issues to consider.