May 22, 2023 – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin made a stop in Central Illinois Monday to address the healthcare workforce shortage.
Durbin held a press conference with Illinois health care leaders to release his “Roadmap to Grow Illinois’ Rural Health Workforce.” The partnership with hospitals, community health centers, medical and nursing schools, community colleges, dentists, physicians, and nurses will organize efforts and provide new funding to address health care workforce shortages and staffing crises in rural Illinois. The full Roadmap report can be viewed here.
“The COVID pandemic showed us how important our rural hospitals and clinics are to keeping our communities healthy and safe,” Durbin said. “However, those rural hospitals and clinics are facing a real threat—not from a new virus, but from a shortage of health care professionals. I’ve spent the past year traveling the state to understand the challenges, including difficulty recruiting new physicians, too few EMTs entering the field, and not enough faculty to train new nurses. The comprehensive plan we are announcing today will help us address the root causes of these shortages by reaching into middle and high schools to attract young people into health careers, expanding the capacity of our education programs, and creating incentives for rural recruitment.”
Durbin announced two federal Fiscal Year 2023 earmarks to help address the goals discussed in the report. Durbin secured $2 million for Illinois State University to expand its nursing school and $1 million for a Rural Health Institute at Southern Illinois University’s School of Medicine.
