Many are senior citizens, who are more apt to require emergency care. Second, the area has been unable to keep up with the demand for hospital-based services. We've built three new hospitals in the past four years when, in other parts of the country, hospitals have been shut down. Eight Las Vegas-area hospitals are reporting a total of 500 nurse vacancies, particularly in the critical care and emergency nursing specialties. The local university and community college graduate only 200 nurses each year.
Hospitals have high turnover rates among new nurses, with many choosing to leave after one year.
Las Vegas has traditionally relied on traveling nurses to help staff hospitals. They, too, are increasingly in short supply. You can't hire ER nurses, you have to grow them. Getting new grads to stay beyond a year is difficult, so the pool of nurses willing to become specialty nurses is really dwindling. And finally, Bunch said there is no centralized body with the power to look into and solve the current and future emergency care needs of this rapidly growing area.