Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed a professional order on Thursday declaring the state's nursing shortage an emergency during the pandemic.
He said an order will address barriers by allowing for increases in nursing school enrollment and can permit nurses licensed in other states to operate in Kentucky. Beshear also intends to include bonus purchase nurses in the budget.
\”You may also expect my next budget will have a loan forgiveness and/or scholarship program for nurses that accept remain in Kentucky for a certain time period,\” Beshear said.
The order charges the Kentucky Board of Nursing with approving requests for increased enrollment at nursing schools which have the capability to defend myself against more students.
\”The order will even require that any school that has that full capacity that gets a job candidate that's capable of refer these to a school that also has vacancies,\” Beshear said.
Beshear also discussed loan forgiveness for both student nurses and nursing school faculty.
On Wednesday, Beshear announced a 10% raise for social workers.
When asked if the legislature could undo the raises, Beshear said he doesn't think that's likely.
\”They set the amount of money we have to pay social workers overall,\” Beshear said. \”Theoretically, could they slash that quantity that’s there to DCBs thus leading to us having to look at other options? Sure they might, but I just don’t anticipate that.\”
Beshear said he plans to budget for a lot more than 300 new social worker positions to assist lower case loads.
