And now, another chapter in the continuing saga of the nursing shortage. This time around, we have irate CEOs who are pissed to hell that nurses are flocking to higher paying jobs, and not accepting the pathetic wages that they are offering.

It’s really pathetic, actually, how a CEO with a zillion dollar income can dare to complain about unfair competition. Why doesn’t he live on the salary that he wants to pay nurses?

The backstory is as follows: this is California, which has one of the worst nursing shortages. San Luis Obispo, which is a lovely place to live on the Central Coast, is very expensive as is much of the state and is also one of the places where nurses just don’t seem to want to hang out. Can pay be a factor?

From Sanluisobispo.com:

A record number of new nurses graduated this weekend from Cuesta College, and while most plan on working at local hospitals, higher salaries at state facilities and hospitals beyond the San Luis Obispo County line are luring some away.

Dan Drager, the only man among 50 registered nursing graduates, plans on moving to Sacramento for work — though the surfer would love to stay on the Central Coast.

“The only reason (to move) is pay,” he said.

Drager, 30, said he can earn $15 more an hour in Sacramento, and he wants to buy a home and car. “This area is just really unrealistic for those things,” he said.

You know, $15/hour is a lot. That comes to $100 per day for an 8 hour shift, and about $2000 a month–enough to pay a mortgage, perhaps?

But the best is yet to come. Rather than raise salaries and make their hospitals more appealing, the powers that be are pissed off that the nurses aren’t coming to work there, and are trying to get other places to lower their pay!!

Cuesta trains about 75 percent of the county’s nurses. All four hospitals in the county support the nursing program financially and through clinical training. But hospital officials are worried that recent salary increases at the California Men’s Colony and Atascadero State Hospital may thwart their ability to recruit and retain qualified nurses.

“We are deeply concerned about this escalating wage disparity and its frightful impact to our community’s health care,” French Hospital CEO Alan Iftinuk wrote in an April letter to Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee.

CMC now starts registered nurses at $85,000 — twice what a nurse fresh out of school could make at local hospitals and about $20,000 to $30,000 more than experienced nurses earn.

Can you believe the balls on this guy? Finally, nurses are being offered decent pay and Mr. CEO is writing to the state assembly in protest. So let’s take a closer look. Alan Iftinuk says he is concerned about escalating wage disparity—uh, is he talking about the disparity of his wages as compared to what his hospital pays nurses? Or the disparity between the wages of all of his senior managers and other parasites in suits, and the salary he pays his nursing staff? Oh, silly me, now why would I think that Al would ever think of that.

And here’s another mind twister. French Hospital is part of Catholic Healthcare West, and I just saw that they earned $438 million in 2006—–and they are on track to beat that number in 2007. Now don’t you feel sorry for those poor little community hospitals who can’t “afford” to keep up with these bright new salaries?

I have a solution for you, Al. How about you donate your Christmas bonus to the nurses, and increase their salaries so that they are competitive with the state facilities? I bet your nursing shortages will disappear. They always do when nurses are paid well, and have a pleasant, safe and healthy environment to work in.

The article says that another hospital, Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, is throwing out the bells and whistles, now that they have some serious competition. They’re offering nurses retention bonuses, continuing education online and developing a program to encourage nurse input on hospital policies. Well isn’t that nice of them, to finally acknowledge nurse input. They are also developing a mortgage assistance program, which is badly needed in California.

But you better believe that none of these perks would ever have materialized if the state facilities hadn’t upped their wages.