Senate Passess Amendment to Address Nurse Visa Problem.

April 19, 2005
In a move designed to help address the nation’s nursing shortages, the Senate today agreed to allow more Filipino, Indian, and Chinese registered nurses to work in the U.S. The Senate adopted an amendment to a Department of Defense supplemental appropriations bill that lets the government reclaim half of the assigned visas left unfilled from other countries during the past four years and reassign them to the Philippines, India, and China, which have exceeded their annual quotas. The amendment was sponsored by Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX, Charles Schumer, D-NY, and Ted Kennedy, D-MA. Reassigning “50% of the unused [employment-based] visas can help resolve our serious nursing shortage,” Hutchison said. The Senate is expected to complete action on the bill tomorrow, setting up a conference for as soon as next week with the House on the supplemental funding bill. The House version does not include the overseas RN visa provision.

US Nursing Shortage

With the U.S. facing a projected shortage of 600,000 nurses by 2020 a cutback in the supply of Filipino and Indian RNs takes on added significance. And the cutback in visas follows a recent report by prominent health care researcher Peter Buerhaus that shows American hospitals increasingly rely on foreign-born RNs. The number of foreign RNs working in the U.S. rose by 12.5% during the past two, accounting for nearly one-third of the total growth of RN employment in the U.S. nurse labor market.