Nurses who work for the state run New Hampshire Hospital and Division for Children, Youth and Families are up for a temporary pay increase to help ease staffing concerns.
Both institutions asked for a 10 dollar hourly increase for their nurses to compete with other employers in the state. In a letter to the state’s Executive Council, Heather Moquin, the CEO of New Hampshire Hospital, said the facility has had a difficult time recruiting new nursing staff.
The difficulty has partly come from the stigma and perceived difficulty surrounding work with mentally ill patients. Recent negative publicity about staff assaults at the hospital has made recruiting even harder, she said.
Moquin said the current wages aren’t competitive in the overall healthcare market. Right now, the salary for nurses at N.H. Hospital is between 12% and 15% lower than the state average, especially if the hospital wants to hire nurses with psychiatric care experience.
An analysis of nurse salaries in New Hampshire found that the Department of Health’s contract with New Hampshire Hospital was $12 per hour below the lowest paid rate in New Hampshire for nurses without psychiatric experience.
State officials did not say what the average hourly rate nurses are paid at the hospital.
Payroll records for staff at the facility show a wide range of earnings. Some entry level nurses made between $18,000 and $29,000, although its unclear whether all worked full time. Some nurses made more than $100,000 a year, according to individual earnings for 2018.
Overall, the state has been experiencing a shortage of nurses for years.
Between June 2019 and May 2020, thousands of licensed nursing assistants in New Hampshire allowed their licenses to lapse in the last year, according to data from the New Hampshire Board of Nursing. For example, 2,381 nursing assistants allowed their licenses to lapse while only 1,672 new licenses were issued, ultimately creating a loss of 709 LNAs.
New Hampshire hospital is especially concerned, as many of their nurses are nearing retirement age. Glencliff Home, a facility for older adults living with a developmental or mental disability has four nurses, and one is eligible for retirement. In the next three years, New Hampshire Hospital has at least six nurses who are approaching retirement age.
Moquin said a lack of staffing could result in fewer available beds at the hospital and a longer wait time for psychiatric treatment.
“New Hampshire hospital cares for individuals who have been deemed too dangerous to manage in other settings,” she said in the letter. “Without sufficient nursing staff, access to acute and long-term care by individuals with mental health needs is at risk.”
A shortage of qualified staff could worsen the state’s psychiatric boarding crisis.
Faced with a shortage of beds in psychiatric facilities, those struggling with mental illness stayed instead in emergency departments of hospitals – sometimes for weeks at the peak of the crisis – as they waited for their names to be moved off a waiting list.
Psychiatric beds are essential now more than ever, now that the pandemic has exacerbated mental health challenges.
In late August, there was a spike in the number of people waiting for psychiatric beds. That led to 71 people, the second-highest number in over eight years, waiting in emergency rooms or prisons for a bed to open up.