DCCCD signs agreement to bring more nurses to Texas

The nationwide deficit in nurses triggered a response from Dallas County Community College District's El Centro College in May.

El Centro teamed with Nurses Now International (NNI), a company that provides long-term staffing contracts for bilingual registered nurses from Mexico, to help solve the sweltering issue in Texas.

NNI and El Centro signed an agreement on May 7 that allows for bilingual nurses from Mexico to participate in an intensive six-week program at El Centro. The nurses will spend the first three weeks in a simulation laboratory in Dallas and work the final three weeks in a clinical setting at Parkland Hospital in Dallas and Baylor Hospital in Garland.

"We expect 20 students in the first class that is scheduled for mid-July," said Dr. LaCheetah McPherson, executive dean of health and legal studies at El Centro.

"They have been practicing for several years in Mexico and will experience six to nine months of training in English skills, which includes reading, writing and speaking."

After completing the course, the nurses will attempt the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOFEL) exam if they have not yet taken it, which will allow them to practice nursing in the United States. After passing the TOFEL exam, they will be allowed to work in the United States for two years before returning to Mexico.

According to McPherson, the long-term benefit of the program will contribute to improving health care in Mexico.

"Many Americans are choosing Mexico as their choice of living after retirement," said McPherson. "We want to provide Mexican hospitals with the same level of health care that they have come to expect from the United States." While NNI is looking to improve treatment in Mexican hospitals, Texas is faced with its own health care crisis with no immediate solution in sight.

The Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies reported that if a change is not made soon in nursing faculty numbers and student enrollment, there will be a shortage of 70,000 nurses by 2020.

"If we doubled enrollment in nursing programs in Texas, we would still not address the nursing shortage," McPherson said.