Bernard has also tried to hire nurses through nurse registries. However. the rates of the registries would cost the hospital more than $2 million each year. an unsustainable expense for an already financially burdened hospital. Clearly. the H(1)(a) visa program had been offering St. Bernard a way to maintain its service to the community when no other option was available. This past fall. even that option was eliminated. My measure. the Nursing Relief Act. will ensure that hospitals like St. Bernard can keep their doors open to the public and continue to support their community. In addition. however. my bill has been designed to protect the jobs of domestic nurses and to ensure that hospitals use the visa program faithfully and only as a last resort solution. I have therefore drafted the Nursing Relief Act to be more narrowly targeted than the old H(1)(a) visa program. My measure ensures that nurses can only be brought into the United States by hospitals that have no other alternative. In short. we have made every effort to ensure that no American nurse will lose his or her job as a result of my bill. While we want to assure that these hospitals have an adequate nursing staff. we must also guarantee that foreign nurses are not taking away jobs from domestic nurses. Let me tell you what my bill does: It establishes a nonimmigrant classification for nurses in health professional shortage areas. The program provides nonimmigrant visas for 500 nurses each year to work in hospitals where there are severe nursing shortages. The Nursing Relief Act protects the jobs of domestic nurses in three separate ways: First. my measure requires that a hospital must certify that it has gone through great lengths to hire and retain domestic nurses before it can use this visa program to hire nonimmigrant nurses. Second. my measure requires that nonimmigrant nurses must be paid the same wages and work under the same conditions as domestic nurses. In addition. nonimmigrant nurses cannot be hired in order to disrupt the activities of labor unions.
Keywords matched
visa visas