Nursing Shortage

The term “shortage” refers to a situation where there is a demand for something but there is not enough of a supply to meet the demand. In order to determine whether there is an actual nursing shortage currently present, we must know what the demand for for nurses and what the current supply of nurses is. According to Buerhaus , Staiger , and Auerbach, the demand for nurses is expected to increase two to three percent per year. Furthermore, The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration suggested that one million new nurses will be by 2020. (Huston, 2010, pg72) The fact that the demand for nurses is increasing does not automatically mean that there is a current nursing shortage unless the current supply of nurses is inadequate to meet the increasing demand. The U.S Department of Labor estimated that 8.5 percent of nursing positions are unfilled and it will triple by 2020. (Huston, 2010, pg74). By this evidence, we are currently experiencing a nursing shortage.
However, it does not have any permanent gains and it have negative consequences on the countries that these nurses come from. Many health officials in countries such as the Philippines suggest that their healthcare systems are on the brink of collapse due to nurse migration. Nurse migration leads to the “brain drain”. This refers to the loss of skilled personnel and the loss of investment in education that is experienced when those human resources migrate elsewhere. (Huston, 2010, pg