BORDER PRESCRIPTION

Many of the Canadian nurses and health care workers who staff hospitals in northern and eastern Maine grumbled about government regulations set to go into effect this month. The rules, on the books for nearly a decade but only recently activated, require that Canadians meet new visa requirements and that nurses pass a national exam.

Most have filled out the necessary paperwork and now await their certification. The problem for many is that the documents they need to cross the border aren’t likely to arrive before July 26, when the law is to go into effect. The White House says it is considering a delay in enforcement. This is necessary to ensure that Maine facilities are not short-staffed and that patients do not go untreated because their caregiver wasn’t allowed across the border.

Hospitals in Aroostook and Washington counties rely heavily on Canadian nurses and health care workers. 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 Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle employs about 40 Canadians. Some of these Canadian citizens live in Maine, while others cross the border every day to go to work. Crossing the border is about to become more difficult, if not impossible.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was passed in 1996, but was dormant until heightened security concerns recently brought it back to life. Under the law, seven categories of health care professionals, but not doctors, who want to work in the United States must meet new visa requirements and nurses must be certified by the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools. Nationally, 5,000 nurses must be certified.

In Maine, some applications to the CGFNS have been processed in three weeks, some have taken nine months. One hospital in northern Maine reports that 75 percent of its nurse supervisors and 33 percent of its nurse managers have applications pending before the commission.

The solution is to delay the rule and allow nurses, some of whom have worked at the same hospital for 20 years or more, to continue to cross the border as they currently do. When the CGFNS has processed all pending applications, the rule can go forward. The White House Office of Management and Budget, under pressure from the offices of Maine’s senators as well as those from other border states, is currently considering such a proposal.

This is a common sense approach to easing the burden on a group of people that have shown they are not a terrorist threat.