Exhausted health care workers seek long-awaited legislative relief

Calls to shore up Connecticut’s health care workforce are getting louder, after the latest COVID variant placed heightened stress on the state’s nurses, physicians, behavioral specialists and other medical staff.

Advocates and lawmakers say programs they’ve long pushed for — workforce training, medical school loan forgiveness, higher nurse-to-patient ratios, simpler license transfers from other states and medical liability insurance reform, to name a few — are all on the table heading into the Connecticut General Assembly’s regular session, which begins Feb. 9.

Fallout from the pandemic, which has exhausted staffs and depleted resources across the state’s health care sector, could drive the change they’ve been seeking.

Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, ranking member of the Public Health committee, said she’s spent six years beating a drum for the state to boost recruitment and retention efforts for nurses, doctors, certified nursing assistants and other medical professionals.

Read more: https://ctmirror.org/2022/02/03/exhausted-health-care-workers-seek-long-awaited-legislative-relief/