A report by the Florida Hospital Association estimates 70 percent of Florida hospitals are facing a critical staffing shortage, and the state will be short 60,000 nurses by 2035.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As Covid infections begin creeping up again across the country, current and former health officials in Florida are warning that the state remains woefully underprepared to handle the next wave of the pandemic.
Florida’s 250-plus hospitals are still facing staffing shortages that continue to worsen as the Covid-19 pandemic drags on. The state Legislature budgeted more than $100 million for community colleges and universities to expand medical training programs to boost the number of qualified nurses in the state and injected $10 million to build medical training centers.
But all that money will not provide immediate relief, not for the next Covid surge or the next worldwide health crisis, Florida Hospital Association president and CEO Mary Mayhew said in an interview.
“The biggest challenge we face will be having enough staff to respond if we experience a significant surge,” Mayhew said.
A report by the association estimates 70 percent of Florida hospitals are facing a critical staffing shortage, and the state will be short 60,000 nurses by 2035.
The fresh warnings come as the worries over Covid-19 and its variants have generally receded, even as cases rise across the country. The seven-day average of positive cases through April 25 increased more than 20 percent nationwide, to 44,416, with hospitalizations up 6 percent from the previous week.
In Florida, the weekly rate of new Covid infections was 9.2 percent as of April 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — it was around 3 percent as of March 11. The state’s Covid-related hospitalizations increased slightly to 1,039 inpatients as of Thursday from the 970 the previous week.
But America is also facing a new stage in the pandemic, one focused on risk acceptance over shutdowns and mandates. The CDC last week reported nearly 60 percent of people in the U.S. have antibodies for the virus, with the numbers even higher for children, a significant increase from previous estimates. Most major cities are no longer instituting mask mandates. Vaccines are readily available for most Americans. Even a positive Covid diagnosis is treated with less anxiety for healthy people, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who announced recently that she tested positive but was showing no symptoms.
Yet with this new dynamic comes concerns that cities and states are letting their guard down.
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A report by the Florida Hospital Association estimates 70 percent of Florida hospitals are facing a critical staffing shortage, and the state will be short 60,000 nurses by 2035https://t.co/6PjIhuxTqK
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