ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — New York is facing a shortage of healthcare workers, and Friday Maria College announced a major partnership to help fill that gap. The school is teaming up with 24 human service organizations to help this issue.
Through this new partnership with Maria College, healthcare workers can get the chance to learn and earn. This means that they can keep their jobs while earning nursing and other healthcare credentials. Officials at Maria College expressed this is very critical because there’s a big shortage in not only nurses but other healthcare workers. Due to this, it’s causing workers to do the jobs of many people.
Dr. Lynn Ortale, the president of Maria College mentioned how the state’s $646 million investment in workforce development had a big impact on this. This initiative allows workers to go from entry-level positions to various certificates and degrees while also helping the shortage.
“I really thank Governor Hochul for doing that to invest in healthcare, workforce development. And the reason is because of the shortage of nurses and by investing that money, students can choose to apply to the Caring Gene,” said Dr. Ortale.
Through that program, people can apply and if approved students will have their tuition, books, uniforms, and fees covered in exchange for being able to work at Medicare or Medicaid facilities who serve patients.
“I just so believe it’s not just providing the opportunities, but look at what our community you know, how much we are benefiting and the needs,” said Senator Patricia Fahy.
At today’s gatherings all 24 health service organizations’ CEOs finalized this partnership by signing the Memorandum of Understanding. Karen Carpenter, president and CEO of Vanderhyden helped get a lot of these organizations involved.
“Most of our organizations, but they are heightened and included as it has about a 30% vacancy rate for nurses. So, people don’t really think that, you know, and we do. So we want to not only train our own staff, but we want to educate the students at Maria and other colleges,” said Carpenter.
Programs like this not only cover tuition and books, but they also give healthcare workers the chance to advance their careers. This is something many thought would not be possible because of the cost. The main idea here is providing people with the best care possible and for that healthcare workers are needed.
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