 Hello, folks. Welcome. We have our our panelists spotlighted and we're delighted to have you all. I have this guess that there are other nurses, retired nurses and medical professionals who are joining us as well. I think it'll be a really rich discussion and I just want to make sure people know in case they want to turn off their video or it changes their remarks in any way that we are recording this and there may be press present. I don't see any press that I can identify right now and CCTV asked if they could have a copy of this recording to share to share with the general public in Cheney County and beyond. So folks want to don't have to could put a comment in the chat if they'd rather it not be featured in some way or you know just know that and we have our we're just so grateful how many people to time out of what we know are very busy schedules to participate in this really critical discussion. We still have people coming in so we'll give it another couple of minutes and then we'll do a more formal start that will probably be the kind of start to the you know piece that we give to CCTV and others and yes I think we can make the recording available to everyone here as well so yeah that's that's a great point. Okay if while we're waiting for a few more people to roll in people want to introduce themselves in the chat you know you could talk about your connection to this issue where you live whatever feels relevant and we'll get started in just a moment and you know one of our panelists is incredibly busy in helping her son with homework right now so whenever I'll count on my team to monitor for when she looks like she can be pinned into the into the interview group panelists group. Okay and with that have we cleared have we cleared the waiting room are we good to go if there's someone else just came in three people are in the waiting room okay we're good to go I'll keep letting people in sounds good okay thank you all so much for joining us this evening uh for those of you who may not know me I'm senator Keisha Rom Hinsdale I serve in the state senate on behalf of Chittenden county and serve on the economic development housing and general affairs committee as well as the government operations committee two committees that look at workforce and uh you know our commitment as employers both in our businesses or institutions as well as as a state um we know we have state hospitals as well uh so you know we have all in the legislature been paying as much attention as we can to the uh nurse staffing crisis and um I you know I say that knowing full well that this crisis didn't just begin with the pandemic it was certainly exacerbated by the pandemic um but we know that this has been an issue that we have seen coming and have not done enough about and I want to take some responsibility for that as well we we need to value the nursing profession in a way that encourages more people to enter the field and in many ways we have fallen down on the job um as folks may know this crisis is is being felt around the country but in a much more acute way in Vermont the national average uh for hospitals facing a critical staffing shortage was 29 percent here in Vermont it's 69 percent um so you know we I think I'm just telling folks things they already know and I particularly want to thank the panelists who are present with us who I know are taking time out of very busy schedules and other commitments to loved ones to talk more about these issues and eliminate them for us and I see in the chat already there are a lot of people who are medical professionals and providers as well as those adjacent who try to help people with social determinants of health so really appreciate all of you being here um we are just so grateful that we have panelists from around the state who have different um we've experienced different perspectives they bring to the table and uh are in slightly different professions uh in the nursing field um I wanted to give all of them the chance to introduce themselves briefly and also say a few words about what made them become nurses in the first place um I'm sure that will illuminate along the way areas where you know they are now feeling challenged to stay committed to a field that they were once really passionate about um because some of those barriers get in the way of experiencing nursing in the way that they had envisioned originally so I will uh I'll start with Teresa because I think we'll go in a different order for the question that comes after well I was not expecting to be kind of first but I'm ready always ready um hi everyone um my name is Teresa Cahill Griffin I have been a nurse for 31 years and five years in Vermont now and um what brought me to nursing oh I always knew I wanted to be a nurse and my mom of course many of you I'm sure nurses your moms are nurses your mom's moms are nurses same for me as well um but for me my slate's a little bit different I I wouldn't say that I'm not oh I always wanted to take care of people kind of mantra that nurses you know um typically say I always knew that I wanted a job where I would always have a job where I had a way to support myself and I had a commitment to a career that I felt I could like it was clear to me the path um through through my career and of course it's taken many twists and turns that I had not anticipated and um I came to Vermont five years ago to join the faculty at UVM where I've been full time um since then but I also can't break myself away from the bed side role so I work at the bedside at the medical center the UVM medical center um in labor and delivery which is my clinical specialty and I love the synergy of of both worlds I love being able to teach nursing students I love the faculty role but I love taking care of patients too and it's it's it's just in our DNA and um to me it's important that I always keep that that that toehold um at the bedside so that's me thanks so much Teresa appreciating that Christina hi everyone uh my name is Christina Price I am a nurse at UVM medical center I'm part of our critical care float pool so I work um in a lot of different places I work um in the emergency department quite a bit both the ICU's um our rapid response team and also cardiology um I have a little shorter nursing career than Teresa I've only been a nurse for about 11 years um eight eight and a half at UVM medical center in this role um and I feel the same way uh Teresa I never said I want to take care of people my whole to nursing was I always want to I want to be involved in my community I want to help my community gain access to the care that they all deserve and I want to be part of a team that can provide that um I never knew I'd end up a critical care nurse it's just where I kind of landed after a senior practicum experience and I've been doing it ever since um I have um I've really grown to love this role and I part of what I love about being a nurse is that there are so many different avenues you can go down and for me being a float nurse has been just wonderful um to occupy that space in my mind I can do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and to kind of tie in the uh aspect of community I love seeing my patients come in through the emergency room and then I get to see them in the ICU after heart surgery and then I get to see them in the cardiology floor when they're recovering and it's just a really holistic experience for me and I'm I really love that um I'm a people person and so that's kind of what keeps me doing it hmm thanks Christina yeah of course I can I can hear it you know what why you love doing what you do at Courtney to introduce myself my name is Courtney and cut your fellow I currently live in Williston I work at Dartmouth Hitchcock Hitchcock Medical Center I've primarily been a uh medical surgical uh step down float well nurse for almost five years now I'm currently working on a neurology floor I've always known that I was going to be a nurse I've grown up I have a huge Italian family and I have so many little cousins that I grew up taking care of I love taking care of people my dad is a 100 percent retired vet trend and I've been his primary caretaker um you know for a number of years now and it's just something it's just me in a nutshell I just love taking care of people uh for me though when I was in high school I uh I had wrong sight surgery when I was going to get my wisdom teeth removed and so I myself was a patient for a really long time and because of my amazing team of medicals of doctors nurses nurse practitioners they really helped change my life and put me you know put me on the trajectory where I am right now so I love being able to make an impact on people's lives just like they did for me and it's such a rewarding career for me thanks so much Courtney and just to make sure I understand you said wrong side surgery so there was a mistake made and they perform surgery on the wrong side of your of your mouth where yep oh my gosh things I'm sharing that and yeah I couldn't see how that you'd want to get things right for people after that um Patricia I know you you looked like you were able to join us um are you still here hi Patricia thanks so much for being with us hi yes um thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this um tonight I'm just ever so blessed and grateful to be a part of this um my name is Patricia Johnson I work as an emergency department nurse at southwest of Vermont medical center Dartmouth Hitchcock and also spoke nurse um for an addictions um MAT which is medication assisted treatment center and um I'm just really grateful to be on and collaborate with all of you to discuss these important matters that you know in situations that are arising and really they're they're barriers to my ability to be productive as a nurse thanks Patricia so great introductions and you know it's hard not to note that it seems like from my observation everyone's a female identifying person as well in this group um you know women have absolutely been on the front lines of this pandemic um and it's it's in many ways as nurses and educators um and you know probably balancing being parents and you know primary caregivers as well through all of that so once again appreciating you all being here and recognizing that it's truly in many ways been women on the front lines um you know I think that leads into a discussion of a wide range of issues as to why we have a nursing shortage here in Vermont um that's mirrored around the country but certainly much more deepened here we were going to talk about wages uh nurse educators and access to nurse educators safe staffing ratios um protections in the workplace resources staff resources mental health resources housing um so many different issues um thought in the continuum of things we'd start with you know the education piece that's the really that's the entryway into the workforce um Courtney it sounded like that's something that you wanted to start by addressing so I think you know I was reading an article not that long ago um it was dated January 2nd 2022 um from Bernie Sanders and he was talking about how Vermont needs nine to ten thousand nurses within five to seven years and we are currently um graduating five hundred to six hundred nurses every year so that is you know obviously a very critical component that we need to focus on we're not producing enough nurses uh enough nurses to keep up with how many nurses we need so one of the aspects I really wanted to discuss was I think it's really important to make um undergraduate nursing education more accessible and affordable in Vermont because I know a lot of nurses who are going to school and they are graduating with crippling student loan debt and it's a lot of nurses you know it's desensitizing people to want to to go to school and then work and then just be crippled in student loan debt so I think that's really important and I think it's really important for us to provide more grants and more scholarship opportunities or more student loan forgiveness opportunities for for nurses who want to become nursing educators and who want to work you know in universities to help increase the amount of students we're able to graduate and I think another important aspect which I saw in the article I just read which I can share with everyone in this group after this is I think we should look at increasing the salaries for nursing educators because there's so many different areas of nursing that nurses can go to graduate school for and education as you know not it's not one of the you know there is not one of the more higher paying you know areas that you can get into so I think that we should incentivize more educators in Vermont and you know produce more you know be able to graduate more nursing students um thanks great me you're welcome I'm gonna go find that article and share yeah oh that'd be great can I piggyback off of what Courtney's saying sure yeah and then we'll go to Terry so hi my name is Patricia Johnson and I'm actually gonna take it a step further I think that we should do loan cancellation um forgiveness is unobtainable by the time that we hit the 10 15 year mark our loans are already paid off especially if we're responsible and we're paying extra on our principle loan cancellation will allow us to start and be present from the get go right out of the gates so there's always this looming feeling when you're working it's like I'm working to pay off my debt I'm working to pay off my debt I want to work to strengthen my community I want to work to support patients and if loan forgiveness is an option which not very many people that I know have ever been able to succeed in I mean that's great but loan cancellation uh would allow us to hit hit the the ground running um and just start out and be productive not have any stress we already have a lot of stress being a nurse especially during COVID so now if we have loan cancellation we're able to know that you know what there's nothing that's holding me back I can come to work I can take care of my patients I can go home I've got my paycheck and then it also contributes to stimulus of our actual community if I'm not having to pay six hundred and fifty two dollars and fifty two cents which is what I pay currently a month then I'm able to put that back into my community I'm able to purchase a home purchase a car I'm able to support local businesses I'm able to enjoy time with my family it leads less resentful feelings towards the nursing field I have to say that you know I've been getting super angry and feeling very left out very isolated very unsupported lately and it all boils down to that payment you know like so it's the first of the month the payments do on the fifth for me right like I'm super nervous about that and it causes me angst it causes me anxiety you know it it affects my work ability affects my work day it affects my workflow if I knew that I wouldn't have that payment if I knew that I had the support of Vermont and that they believed in me and knew that I was doing the best I could to the best of my ability I feel like I'd be on like cloud nine and that I would just be free to do what I wanted to do which is the initial thing that I got into nursing for to help people but it's so hard to help people other people when I'm struggling myself single mom three children I mean that that's a huge chunk of my paycheck thanks Patricia for I mean really painting a picture with a lot of honesty and bravery so thank you and you're not asking for a lot so it's just really helpful people are you know putting in the chat one of the clear reasons why why we're facing such a shortage is you know that that uh cost of living to wage ratio and you know your your experience of you know paying off that debt when it you know we should be paying nurses to to go to school and to start in this field Terry and I have one more I have one more thing to say I'm so sorry um I just want to note that minorities um are it's a statistic and it's a proven fact that minorities graduate with um more student loan debt than um anybody else so I just want to give you a figure I don't I graduated with over a hundred thousand dollars worth of student loan debt how is that supposed to work you know how am I supposed to manage my everyday life and get back on track and be a productive citizen um contributing um legally to my community with that amount of debt that is real Patricia thank you and you know to to get into that much debt to try and help people in a field that's critical just seems really wrong um Terry you're on the faculty side of this I imagine you have conversations about access and and trying to make these numbers different uh what does that look like so from the faculty aspect there's so much I mean to piggyback on what Courtney had said it's more than attracting people to the nurse educator role the the two roles don't really they're not in synergy if the educator role is very scripted from the university side and the regulatory side of what a college professor in you in Vermont makes and it doesn't in any way line up with what a nurse even a year or two out of school can make at the bedside working right across the driveway at the UVM Medical Center and I think what I noticed for myself is as I said I've been a nurse 31 years so I'm at the top of the pay scale in Vermont because of my years of experience and as a full-time professor with my doctoral degree at the university which is public information that you can all look up um I made more at the medical center last year that I work as a per diem nurse just you know on call when when needed so I make more in the role at the bedside than I ever will honestly at the university side so when you think of a nurse like Patricia um who's already deep in debt may have an interest in going on with her education but is she going to go further into debt to get an advanced degree to teach when in fact the teaching role will pay her far less than what she's paying right now the economics of it just don't match up so I meet a lot of nurses in my day-to-day life who wish they could be nurse educators but there's economically it just doesn't make sense for most of them to pursue that where the same amount of education as a graduate degree two or three years you could be a nurse practitioner where again the numbers are being so much more in the nurse's favor so it's I feel like Vermont could really be a trend setter here Vermont could really set the set the example for the rest of the country over how how we could equalize that out like Courtney said about making an incentive for a nurse to go back to school but also encouraging the the nursing faculty you know to not only be paid their worth but continue that contribution to the profession and then we could bring more students in I mean the cycle perpetuates itself if I had more nursing professors I'm sure we would bring in more nursing students and Vermont the University of Vermont and most of our nursing schools in Vermont have really good reputations within the nursing community if if we had positions for many well qualified applicants I think they would come yeah and and so considering that whole that whole cycle really needs to be reevaluated and I'd love to see Vermont on the forefront of of setting an example for how we could do that because that's not just you know that's a nationwide problem not not just from us right no that sounds like an absolute win-win and we haven't given that enough attention I see that the request has been made to the state to start paying nursing professors and attract faculty I kind of want to ask a just a question that's on my mind and and Terry you may know the answer you know there are sometimes discrepancies in terms of how much doctors are appreciated versus nurses and would you say the same issue exists in you know for for doctors who go back into teaching as as that exists for nurses is this a problem across the medical field oh now that's a loaded question if we're really talking apples and oranges the whole infrastructure of medical education to becoming a physician and then the their whole tiered system is much better developed the expectations are much different and and so you're really honestly can't compare the two I will say and this is myself personally speaking I feel that it's still a very physician-centric area that I work in right now and until we this goes really more towards the workforce issues you know until the that playing field is a little bit more balanced and nurses really feel like they have a voice in the care of the patients alongside their physician colleagues some of this disconnect is is going to continue because I think the respect the for the physicians it is greater than it is for the nurses we we can look no further than the pandemic and all the news coverage and all every time there's a news story on you know a health care related issue related to the pandemic they're pulling out a physician or two or to talk about the issue sell them do they pull a nurse or we you know we clearly we have a lot to say and and we are at the bedside actually caring for the people during this you know pandemic and and every day but seldom is our opinion you know given as much weight as our physician colleagues thanks for sharing that um Christina I'd love to go to you um to talk about uh it sounds like safe staffing ratios um for patients and nurses I know others probably have opinions on that but I'd love to get your voice in here and then talk about that as well sure um I'd like just to piggyback I think I can segue in so I think we need educators yes I agree 100 we need to incentivize educators we need more nursing students but we also need to focus on keeping those nursing students in Vermont and that's kind of where I'm going to go with my point is that we just don't have enough bodies and we don't have enough skilled bodies I think anyone on this call can relate to the fact that we are working with very very green nurses a lot of the time and many nurses that are not from our own institutions those nurses can have amazing amazing skills but um they're not always specific to the units that they're in we need to figure out how to retain nurses so that yes our ratios are adequate to meet our patients needs currently I feel that almost everywhere I work we are unable to meet our patients needs to to the best of our abilities as a nurse we all feel like we need to be doing 110 we need to be providing the best care but right now our resources are really limited and we're not able to do that because we don't have the you know the the depth in the depth in our field of nursing staff on a shift so you could work in an ICU and have and there are many people on this call who can speak to this but often our patients our patients right now are sick and we all know this right the last 18 months just the pandemic has exacerbated a problem that has been outstanding access to mental health access to primary care those are things we have we've had trouble with and they're far worse now so when we see that and people aren't getting into those primary care appointments and they're not getting to their their mental health appointments they come into the ER sick they end up in the ICU far more sick because they needed a heart surgery a month ago and or six months ago really now um and they're getting it late and their prognosis isn't as great and they're requiring higher acuity care and devices and things that we just aren't staffed for right now and so I think for me getting in new nurses retaining new nurses so that they have the skill and ability to take care of this population that is aging and sick it's the sickest population we have had in a very long time and you know to piggyback on that we don't have the resources out patients to keep up right now and so we need yes to focus on the hospitals we need to focus on the primary care clinics we need to focus on the mental health clinics it's just an all trickle down and I think until we can effectively retain staff in this state for I mean all areas of nursing it's it's going to only get worse and so I'm very interested in you know we talk a lot about problems I'm so interested in solutions if people have ideas because I think I'm you know I've been on these think tank calls recently with senator sanders with peter welch we're trying to think of how do we make it better um and I think we just need to be those people as we always are right we're nurses we're creative we need to really start pushing and thinking and and really advocating for our profession because it's it's drowning yeah um and so yeah I think that that's absolutely 100 on point and I keep telling myself what is going to make vermont marketable what is going to make it so that people want to come to vermont and open a practice or become employer to practice and I just I struggle with it myself because in a way I'm like I'm trying to get out of here but I want to be here and I just it's it's so disheartening when I'm trying to get a client into a into a primary care office and they're like six months and I'm like but wait this guy is hypertensive diabetic six months I don't know if he's gonna make it well yeah Courtney you look like you want to say something I mean and it's such an expensive system I you know I'd say as a lawmaker we we know we're also trying to explain to you know vermonters how the costs keep climbing and they're you know and they're out of pocket costs they're premiums they're deductibles and you know at the same time we know that you are being under staffed and under resourced and underpaid so you know it's one of those things where we really have to dig in to where the the dollars are going and I know that folks have thoughts about that as well Courtney so I would really just like to talk about you know more on the issue I think one of the things that would that would really attract nurses to vermont would be you know establish establishing safe nurse patient ratios I know this might seem a little counterproductive while since we're meeting about you know staffing crisis as a nursing but right now California is the only state in the United States that has established safe nurse patient ratios and I think that this is critically important you know to not only increase patient safety decrease patient mortality but to really decrease nurse burnout I read recently that half a million nurses are expected to leave the bedside this year and this is already compounded on top of all the nurses that have already left the bedside because during the COVID pandemic and I think if vermont was to become the second state and the only state on the east coast to establish safe nurse patient ratios it would it would attract a lot of nurses across the United States to want to come and work in vermont because I think they would feel it's safer and it's you know it would create better working conditions and I think it would again ultimately be better for the patients too so that's just that's just my thoughts on that thanks Courtney if anybody else wants to say something about nurse burnout safety in the workplace violence against nurses we can sort of talk about that and then Patricia I see I see your hand up and then Margaret's hand so we'll go to questions after everyone's able to give their thoughts on you know the climate of working as a nurse I think I'd like to speak to not so much violence in nursing but I think Kisha at the beginning you said about us you know being a very female predominantly female dominated profession and I I think what what's intersecting here that is kind of the elephant in the room is there's been a real and is an ongoing generational shift and as someone who's been in nursing for a long time and I know there's someone else in in the audience who's been a nurse longer than me god bless you and I think what the profession has not done is caught up with what those generational trends um have meant for a female dominated profession and that's that women my age and protected older this the working conditions were something we endured it was something to be expected and it was something that well that's the job that you signed up for kind of mentality and today's younger workforce sorry don't need to label anyone is younger um they they don't have to put up with it I guess is the best way to phrase it they have options they have choices and um and so with their feet with their resignations they're not putting up with it they're seeking other employment they're leaving nursing all together after only a few years in the profession because the working conditions are just not sustainable um and what what I see happening is that our employers the health care system has not caught up with this and I I wish I'd see more interest from them in trying to catch up with this how can you as Christina said retain not only get them here but retain them so they stay here for a few years um in the at the bedside working as nurses because if you keep telling them they can't ever take time off and they have three kids and but oh no you can't take vacation we don't have enough people to replace you that's not a that's not something someone of a younger generation than me is going to they're not going to just put up with it for the next 20 30 years because oh well that's what I signed up for and this is my community they're they're leaving in droves and um so it's it's it's that intersection in that aspect with the working conditions are so much more difficult than they are now I think of Christina working in the ICU and I think I worked in the ICU 25 years ago that it's an unrecognizable environment to me at this point in time yet nursing has not caught up with that we're still staffing it in the same way the same traditional models of providing this care still still are in practice I probably wouldn't recognize a lot of the medications and the treatments but how the nurses were placed and what they were expected to do day to day probably would look similar and that shouldn't happen they should have evolved that care design in the same way that the medical treatment has changed um but nursing is still here hospitals are still here doing the same same things and expecting that someone's going to do something differently and so that's why many many nurses are leaving the profession with even just a couple years experience thanks terry I see a lot of nodding hence a lot of agreement in the in the chat as well so we're going to open it up for folks to share comments and questions um patricia pomerlo I see your hand mute there we go hi kisha thank you for for hosting this um I am a nurse um for most of my life was running hospitals um and being a director of nursing and then being a chief operating officer and I am um I am so impressed by the comments from today uh the the assessment of what is going on I've been away from Vermont for over 30 years I just moved back um about 18 months ago uh sort of quasi retired I still own a company but I no longer work in hospitals however I read an article today in the washington post that says babysitters are now making 21 dollars and 50 cents an hour in new york city and teachers and nurses in new york city are now taking babysitting jobs uh what I the reason that I came on the call today um is first of all I have a good friend who is uh in nursing rosemary dale uh she and I were baby directors of nursing together um and and I am willing to I would like to assist in helping persuade the legislature to make some very significant changes and and forward movement relative to nursing and that means um increased salaries for nurses increased salaries for particularly even nurse educators I mean it's absolutely ridiculous what we pay nurse educators in this in this town and as patricia had mentioned hi my name is sake um uh is forgiveness because we need to make going into nursing more attractive and less burdensome and I think the burden is as is as significant as the salary you know having that incredible burden of nursing education I have taught in the schools in this state I am so impressed by the nurses in this state and I now have time because I am no longer a chief operating officer or working in those in those roles I now have time to help so if you need help to persuade people I'm pretty good at persuading people and if you need some assistance I am more than than at your service to work with you uh to make these changes with and with bernie too bernie he's a friend of mine I can I can work with you and with bernie to see what we can do for nurses in this state because I'm back and I'm ready all right I just felt a force of nature you know up here in the state so and patricia I think we have your email from registration if you wanted to share it with any others privately or you know somehow in the chat but I'll leave that up to you but we'll certainly find you and and use your voice and capacity and really appreciate that I think others will do that as well and before we go to other questions I did want to note that you know we have some other legislators who are listening uh representative leslie goldman who's on the health care committee is is listening in from bellows falls all the way from bellows falls um and uh representative janna brown is here from richmond um so just wanted to note others are are listening and and janna's on the education committee which doesn't always you know she may say the same doesn't always get to touch on continuing education and um graduate level education but they may have uh a hand in this as well um and net margaret I see your hand next I just want to say I don't I just have I'm probably like one of the newer nurses on here I've only been a nurse for four years um when I trained I was trained by these nurses who had been nurses for longer than I've been alive um but they're all gone they all left um because they didn't want to go through it so now four years um that's like a lot of the experience um and I just wanted to say how scary it is um and no one wants to stay because like my job right now I get like the privilege of like we have charged nurses who have only been nurses for nine months and then they're in charge and um and then there's no one really like to look up to that like to look up to and then um or you go to the ICU and there's no one to train like train these people on these devices that are specialized that you can't just like put anybody in so then there's an impella and they're like who's taking it and there's no one to train the new staff and there's no one to take it and these patients are honestly just kind of out of luck and that's just really unfortunate because we have the technology we have the capability and then it just kind of falls short and um I'm lucky where I don't have student loans anymore because I went travel nursing or I quite honestly would not be able to afford to live in Vermont like and that's with experience but like I know nurses who are simply leaving because like they like you can't live here you can't live on your own so like to do it like I'm 26 and you know I have multiple roommates which is fine and I love them but like that just seems weird to me that like if we want nurses to stay at the bedside and like make a career out of bedside nursing and my mom's done it she's been a nurse her a bedside pediatric nurse her whole life but like for me like it's honestly not feasible to even stay here because I'll never save any money I'll never be able to do any of that and I think that's a huge problem and these young people they see travel nursing heck I saw it got me out of my debt and then I settled down but like unless something drastically changes we're gonna constantly be behind because not everyone like can go travel nursing and stuff but I just wanted to like emphasize how scary it is and how frustrating it is um for a lot of us who are still at the bedside well thank you Margaret I mean you really drove home the crisis part of all of this and illustrated that in such a in a frightening way as you said I you know want to allow panelists the opportunity to respond as well I also see you know Deb Snell has her hand up next president of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals for AFT so I know she has some things that are really important to say as well but I do see some panelists who really want to come down yeah so I actually I I agree with you 100% and Deb can speak to this because we work together in the ICU so I'll tell you how we deal with that right now we we don't have experienced staff a lot of times we sacrifice patient care so if someone comes out of the operating room with a fresh coronary artery bypass and we have three nurses out of 12 that have the skill and ability to take care of that patient one of those nurses leaves their assignment and goes and does that for four hours until that patient is stable until there's a pediatric ICU patient who needs to come in and there's no skill and ability to take care of that so then you switch assignments again and then someone comes out of the cath lab with an impella and you only have one nurse on who knows how to take care of that patient you switch assignments again so the patient care is completely getting compromised and that is something that I feel like our higher ups in our hospital our legislators people do not understand in it they are not going to understand it until it impacts them or their family member but it is truly poor care and it's not that any of us want to be giving poor care it's the discontinuant discontinuation of care is not good for anyone but we have that Christina amen so little depth in our bench that and what's happening is and Deb can speak to this too half of our ICU just left because they are so stressed from doing this because the mental anguish of not being able to provide the best care you want to provide because resources have taken away from you and you have no help is wearing and so people leave and they go to quality and they go to data and not that these things aren't important but they leave the bedside and right now we need bedside nurses or they go travel because anything's better for five times amount of money right but it's not it's just we are so thin right now and if we do not retain the nurses we have to teach the new coming nurses i fear for who will take care of of me our generation and so that's been something that you know it's so great to hear a new grad say that because it is true and it's only getting worse by the day i just like to make you know i would just like to touch on some of the other comments that were made and i really agree with a lot of what everyone is saying here i think that you know i work right now as a travel nurse and my cousin um she is an ER nurse in new jersey she just bought a home and she just recently a couple weeks ago left her permanent job to become a travel nurse because she could not afford her student loan payments when they start up again in may with her new mortgage that she just had and it's really sad you know when when we were doing such a critical job we're working and we're we're treating people during this pandemic we're seeing so many horrors that we haven't seen you know in our careers and we're having to make a choice between owning a home and paying student loan debt or having to move um and you know i think consistency and retention is really important and i think that um that again going back to student loan forgiveness and doing you know these different things is is important and i think that a lot of the nurses that are leaving to travel you know would like to stay home they would like they don't want to leave their families they don't want to leave you know their husbands and their kids and i'm seeing so many nurses that are doing this just because of the crippling debt and because of the wages that aren't matching up with and aren't matching up with the housing prices and and whatnot um and i think like pristina said it's important you know to have solid you know nurses with experience who will be able to train new nurses who really need you know extended orientations who need three to six months of orientation and it's important that we're able to retain nurses you know um and keep them at the bedside um by having experienced nurses in the hospital can i also just say one thing like i dream of the day where i don't have to walk through my doors and tell my children to wait to give me a hug can i dream of the day where i don't have to walk through my doors and take my clothes off in my uh in the in the in um my like um whatever the like little area in between and and just move forward towards a shower and then like give affection to my children i just i just can't wait for the day where i can just love on my kids when i come in the door it's just like i'm half i'm on high alert and it's so stressful and as a minority i don't want to be responsible for getting anybody else in my family sick and that's extra baggage that i bring every day to work is the patient care that i'm giving to someone else gonna affect my family my own family and and that in itself it's it's almost traumatizing you know i just don't know what to do anymore it's such a burden to bear patricia i'm so sorry and it's been a lot of years of doing that and waiting and people other people are not as patient and are not sacrificing nearly as much deb deb you've been waiting really patiently it's great to see you thanks for being here yes and thank you um for hosting this um i just wanted there's a couple points i really wanted to make listening to everybody um you know first of all all of this stuff is not going to happen nothing's going to happen unless we keep the people that are here right now here and there are a number of things we can do that besides raising wages we really need to look at tax breaks for healthcare professionals even if it's just for the course of a couple of years till things settle down again um because we need to use every tool in the tool belt right now that we have and i really think that is something that could potentially keep people here if the governor was willing to pay $10,000 for people to just move to the state not even work here he can do this for the people that are here right now um secondly we need to attract more people here to the state including healthcare professionals because as much as i want vermont to produce enough nurses to serve our state it's not going to happen any time of the near future unfortunately not with the number of nurses we need so to get people here we need a place for them to live so we really need to fix the housing crisis because that is part of why nurses are going to travel so they can afford to buy a home in their state which is absolutely insane and as far as like loan forgiveness forget that we need free tuition for anyone wanting to go to nursing school right now period any vermont or wanting to get into a nursing school program should be able to get in i know the state colleges right now have like hundreds of people on waitlist waiting to get into nursing school we need to figure out a way to expand the programs expand the campuses have provide free tuition for anyone wanting to go there and to get people into our state then we can talk about like a loan forgiveness program for them if they work with us and agree to stay for like five years or whatever enough where they can put down roots in our state so i know i'm blathering but i know i have close taking notes so yeah no but these are like the things i'm obviously very passionate about and i've been working with a legislator about i was excited that um the senator and um meeting with him and peter welch and our governor with a large group of um hospital representatives and educators on ways to work this out i know the senator is very very interested in trying to figure out how vermont can be like the shining star for how to fix the nursing problems in our state and i really feel the things i talked about those are steps that need to be taken to get us over the finish line and through this crisis and it's not going to be a quick fix i think we all get that we're in this for the long haul but um we need to start taking action now or it's just going to get worse like christina said and hi christina it's i see not me i see you oh that's true so you know somewhere you get to see our faces not exactly very rare we don't see each other smile anymore so sad oh yeah well and thank you so much deb you know obviously there's a lot of agreement from folks who are on here and i'm absolutely hearing you um and you know it there are ways that the statins to kick in but you know when you look at uvia medical and the university foundation we need to start getting philanthropists to pay for absolutely three nursing programs you know it's just we have philanthropy on a number of fronts with with medical care and you know we need to sound the alarm that that we need um we need everyone to be pitching in uh absolutely so thanks thanks so much deb but not absolving our responsibility no no oh trust me i will i'll be i'll make sure i keep you on the hook exactly please do hold our feet to the fire thanks so much deb we have time for for one more comment or question i did see a couple people put their hands back down just just maybe thought their um comments were already addressed but i see rose i know you have i can still see you and i think there was one other person yeah rose go ahead hi everybody my name's rose um great great get together today and deb i love you you're such a strong voice for us nurses um i worked with deb as well as christina for a while back i am a nurse i've been a nurse for 12 years i started out my career at uvm i love uvm but i i i couldn't afford it you know i couldn't afford to continue working there you know i put in a lot of years i worked there till 2016 until i said i you know i need to travel back to where it's at for me right now and now that i'm doing that i'm seeing that our wages like when you spoke earlier about a daycare provider making the same as a lifesaving position you know um and the weight of our job i mean we're all going home like feeling like beaten like how do we keep up with this uh charge nurses are given full assignments and they're expected to help others i mean it's just breaking my heart and i'm seeing these new nurses come out in school and they're done like you said earlier two years they're like i can't do this not what i set out for um it's just put such a strain on us and i don't think the compensation is anything comparable to what a nurse is indeed do for the services that we provide and the care i mean we hold this community together we reach out for people whether we're at work or not those in need of help that's our nature you know and yeah that brings tears and i'd love to be back in mar but i can't afford it um you know we need to be competitive in our wages and sadly i've had to go elsewhere to find that and i don't want that to be the case nor do i want it to be for my family um you know my son's looking at buying a house now he works at the medical center in a different capacity he's like how am i ever gonna afford to live in vermont for my life and buy not just continually rent he's 26 you know so yeah um us nurses i think are very strong people men and women and we will stick together and having our voices heard by people such as yourself senator is so helpful because i know a lot of people have strong actions so yeah so i cry so that's i mean that's an incredible note to to wrap this up on just a reminder of what we heard in the beginning people are going into nursing to help to run into the burning building not to run away from these problems um you know and to at that selflessness just comes through that people aren't saying i want to fix this just for myself but for my kids and for you know the nurses who come after me and for patients that need better quality care um you know i don't want to celebrate the selflessness too much because you all are amazing and have done you know just more than any human being could be asked to do in your work and i don't want to say that in a patronizing way i want to say that to say we owe you a lot more and this renews my commitment to delivering on that i know there other decision makers um who will renew that commitment i will share this if it's okay with other legislators who weren't able to be here and we know this is going to go out on cctv as well um this has been just incredibly illuminating and we have one more minute i'll let you know i'll let somebody on the panel have the last word because i think that's only fitting peace anybody wants to say anything i just want to say that we are stronger together and when we have come to a consensus and we're all on the same page change happens and that's the beautiful thing and we've got this and i believe in every single one of you and i am so proud even though we do not work in the same department even though we do not work in the same hospital i am blessed to be able to say that we are nurse sisters and brothers and that we've got this and that everything will be okay we will get there someday together thank you patricia for taking us out thank you all for being here um you know and we will stay in touch as well so please you know keep in touch this is as patricia said a family you know especially among all of you who have been through the fire um and have come out the other side so thank you thank you and this has been illuminating i just cannot appreciate all of you now for taking time out of your really busy lives and days thank you thank you so much for letting us uh have a voice yes thank you thank you so much for everything and being able to talk about this it's so important and i'm glad you guys are listening to us and letting the front line the people involved give you our input it should happen far more often thanks so much again thank you all thank you bye now