Stafford County nurse praised by Youngkin during State of the Commonwealth

She is Kaitlyn Niesent, a Stafford County resident who graduated from Germanna last spring. The governor called nurses "Virginia's quiet heroes." "Everyone should be well aware of the fact that we have a serious shortage of nurses," Youngkin said. "Virginia hospitals have identified a shortage of more than 4,000 nurses at their facilities and vacancy rates are estimated as high as 40% across healthcare. We must accelerate the education and licensing of thousands of nurses." "The budget I introduced in December includes $35 million for the Earn to Learn accelerator, a program designed to get more nurses from the classroom to the front line faster. Kaitlyn Niesent is a nurse from Stafford County and she's here with us in the gallery this afternoon," She stood to a brief standing ovation. "Kaitlyn was one of the earliest enrollees in Germanna Community College's Earn to Learn program... She's a registered nurse at Mary Washington Hospital's intensive care unit. Kaitlyn, thank you for being one of Virginia's quiet heroes. And now friends, let's get Kaitlyn some reinforcements." Mary Washington Healthcare and Germanna began a partnership during the pandemic called "Earn While You Learn," which helped address the nursing shortage then. It allowed nursing students at Germanna to be paid as nursing assistants at Mary Washington Hospital as they worked with trained nurses to get more clinical experience. Germanna has committed to doubling its number of nursing and related graduates over the next three years in response to this critical shortage. GCC has also committed to serving community health needs by featuring a second Robert C. O'Neill community wellness center in the new Stafford facility. The other one will be in a new Locust Grove facility. Within the Germanna service area, Nursing and Allied Health labor shortages match the rest of the nation at 18 to 25 percent, according to Germanna's Bruce Davis, special assistant to the president for institutional advancement. He also said that the area nursing shortage is expected to become more severe when a 450,000-square-foot Veterans Administration Clinic opens in Spotsylvania in late 2023 or early 2024. Youngkin delivered his address to state officials and members of the politically-divided General Assembly, who gathered in Richmond Wednesday to convene the 2023 legislative session. The governor highlighted actions taken over the past year, noting moves to eliminate the grocery sales tax at the state level and increase teacher pay, while identifying "challenges" he believes the commonwealth continues to face.