Proposed program addresses workforce shortages in Delaware long-term care facilities
DELAWARE – “We need to be in areas like this. We can’t ignore those who are unable to take care of themselves,” Dr. Richardson.
Delaware lawmakers look to address what they’re calling an acute shortage of health care workers in long-term care facilities. “Between 2020-2023, nursing facilities saw a 15.5% drop in total employment. Assisted living facilities saw a 6.9% drop in total employment,” Bill Sponsor Senator Spiros Mantzavinos said.
Senator Mantzavinos said that Delaware’s long-term care staff shortages are more pronounced than the national average.
Senate Bill 217 would create a loan-to-grant program, offering up to $5,000 in tuition assistance for up to four years to nursing students who agree to work in a long term-care facility in Delaware. “This bill is going to be particularly helpful, we believe, in encouraging out of state students to work in Delaware and stay,” Senator Mantzavinos said.
The Delaware Higher Education Office would be tasked with spearheading the program. If passed, Senator Mantzavinos said $1 million would be appropriated annually by the General Assembly to support the program.
Delaware State University Nursing Department Chair Dr. Agnes Richardson said they do see some of their students going into long-term care, but not as many as they should be due to how challenging it can be. “Long term is not an easy type of care to provide, there’s a lot of integral parts involved with it. For some of them, you become their family,” she said.
Despite that, Dr. Richardson told us that this legislation could be an incentive to get more students in that area to see how regarding it can be. “It is a long-term commitment to these patients because they become a part of you. You get to know them beyond the patient and the bed,” she said.
Under this act, those who have been employed for at least one year as a nurse at a long-term care facility in a Delaware would also be eligible to apply for loan repayment.
The bill now sits in the Senate Education Committee.
