CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — UNC has received a five-million-dollar gift to help combat a statewide nursing crisis.
According to the university, the new funds will make nursing education more affordable and bring more educators to UNC’s nursing program. UNC hopes that the donation will support 250 undergraduate nursing students and expand enrollment by 50%.
On average, the state faces an annual shortage of 5,000 to 8,000 nurses. Experts expect the nursing shortage to worsen in the coming years as more nurses retire from the workforce.
As of now, nursing schools produce around 4,000 new nurses each year. According to North Carolina Nurses Association president, Dr. Dennis Taylor, that’s not enough to solve the problem.
“It’s not that there’s a lack of interest in the profession or the field,” Taylor told ABC 11. “We can’t get folks to teach.”
To Taylor, the situation is expected to become much worse before it improves.
“The North Carolina Institute of Medicine did a study, and (it) predicted that around this time of 2020, to 2025, we would have a significant shortage given that the baby-boomer nurses were going to be leaving the workforce, as well as we weren’t producing enough,” Taylor said.