New Mexico Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury has introduced the House version of thePublic Health Nursing Act.
The legislation is the counterpart of a bill introduced in the upper chamber by Sen. Edward Markey of Massechutess.
The bill aims to address the nation’s nursing shortage by authorizing $5 billion annually over ten years to create a grant program through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for state, local and Tribal public health departments to recruit, train, and hire licensed registered nurses.
Stansbury says the shortage of nurses is a major healthcare concern in New Mexico and across the country.
“All across the United States we’ve had over 100-thousand nurses leave the workforce since 2020 in part because of burnout, because of workplace conditions and hospitals and clinics across the country, because of the implications and impacts of the pandemic itself and because our nurses and our healthcare workers have been trying to fight for better workplace conditions,” she said.
The legislation has at least 18 cosponsors in the House. It has the support of the National Nurses United, American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME, Service Employees International Union, and the AFL-CIO.