BORDER CROSSING ILLS

A dormant law that is only now being enforced due to heightened security concerns is causing unnecessary anxiety for Canadian nurses and the hospitals along the U.S. border that employ them. A delay in implementing the law while better solutions are found could assure the security goals are met without causing needless anxiety to health care workers, hospitals or patients.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was passed in 1996, but will take effect July 26. Seven categories of health care professionals who want to work in the United States must meet new visa requirements and nurses must pass the National Council Licensure Examination, even if they graduated from an American school. That has left many Canadian nurses, some trained in the United States, scrambling to meet the new education and visa requirements. If they obtain the health care certificate, for which there is already a backlog of applications, they must show the documentation every time they cross the border.

Many Maine hospitals employ large numbers of Canadian nurses, some residing on this side of the border and others who cross the border every day. At Calais Regional Hospital, more than one-third of the nursing staff is from Canada as is more than half the facility’s laboratory workers. The Aroos-took Medical Center in Presque Isle employs about 40 Canadians – three so far have quit over the new requirements. Nurses, some who have worked at the hospitals for decades, are nervous about having to pass a general nursing exam so many years after completing school and, often, having specialized in a practice area. In addition, the exam and visa cost about $800 and cannot be obtained locally.

Although most of the Canadian employees at these hospitals are in the process of completing the testing and paperwork necessary to meet the law, it is causing anxiety and financial hardship for some, and many worry they will not have the necessary certificate by July 26. The rules could exacerbate an already severe shortage of nurses and other health care professional in the United States and Maine.

There is a shortfall of more than 111,000 nurses nationwide, about 6 percent of the total needed. The situation is worse in Maine, with a 12 percent shortfall that is predicted to grow to 31 percent by 2020. These rules are unnecessarily – terrorists have not been found posing as nurses – making the situation worse.

Sen. Olympia Snowe and 13 other senators have repeatedly written to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge asking for a one-year delay in the rules to allow border states to find a better way to accomplish the same goal. One good suggestion is to grand-father longtime hospital workers, who are well known by the border patrol agents they frequently pass.

Other solutions likely could be found if this burdensome process is put on hold.