IDAHO, USA — Recruiting and retaining nurses in rural Idaho isn't easy.
"In Idaho, only about 24% of all registered nurses in the state live in rural areas," said Brie Sandow, Nurse Leaders of Idaho president-elect.
One bill, headed to the House floor, addresses the nurse shortage. If signed into law, House Bill 84 would establish a "Rural Nursing Loan Repayment Fund" on July 1.
Representative Dori Healey, R-District 15, wrote the bill. She said paying back student loans hopefully encourages future graduates to work in rural areas.
"It's hard to fill those hospitals, long-term care, nursing facilities, and clinics with nurses," Healey said. "As they graduate colleges and universities, it's hard for them to move out to those areas, and not a lot gets them to move out there."
She said money for the fund would come from the $410 million set aside for education this legislative session. New graduates would get up to $25,000 to help pay off loans but would need to work in one specific rural area for five years.
There is a cap on how many nurses could receive loan repayment. Healey said the fund would help about 100 nurses over the next six years.
Any incentive to help recruit and retain nurses are helpful, Sandow said. Idaho has nearly 2,000 fewer nurses than it did in 2018, according to Idaho Center for Nursing data.
"As you can imagine, new graduate nurses who are just leaving school tend to want to go to areas that are more populated," she said.
Healey said nurses have also been moving out of rural areas and into cities over the past few years.
"Some of these smaller hospitals don't pay quite as much," she said. "But then, if you look at that, it's also more expensive to live in a bigger city. And so, if we can help offset that with paying back some of [nurses'] student loans, that might be more inviting to go maybe make a couple of dollars less, but yet have your student loans paid back."
Getting more nurses in rural areas will also help curb the future mass retirement of nurses. Sandow said more than 35% of nurses in Idaho are over the age of 55.
Many of those nurses are retiring, and experts say the state isn't producing enough nurses to keep up with those vacancies.
About 775 to 800 students in Idaho graduate with a nursing degree every year, Randall Hudspeth, Idaho Center for Nursing, wrote in an email. He said that number should be at least 1,100 to keep up with demand.
Sandow said population growth is also an issue.
"The people that have migrated or moved into Idaho, a lot of those people are already retirement age or older," she said. "That creates a disproportionate burden in terms of just the volume of patients that we have on the health care system."
Healey hopes future nurses realize the benefits of working in rural areas.
"When you're in those small communities, you just become such a part of the community that I think they'll want to stay," she said.
There is no set date for when House Bill 84 goes to the floor. But Healey said likely in the next week or so.
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