On the recordAugust 1, 2011
I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I offer this legislation on behalf of myself and Representatives Cuellar, Hinojosa, Roskam, and Rush. A number of American hospitals have great difficulty attracting nurses. These include hospitals that serve mostly poor patients in inner-city neighborhoods and some hospitals in rural areas. For example, St. Bernard Hospital in Chicago is the only remaining hospital in an area of over 100,000 people and almost all of its patients live in poverty. St. Bernard almost closed its doors in 1992 primarily because of its inability to attract registered nurses. Congress passed the Nursing Relief for Disadvantaged Areas Act in 1999 to help hospitals like St. Bernard. It created a new H-1C temporary registered nurse visa program with 500 visas available each year that allowed nurses to stay for 3 years. To be able to petition for a foreign nurse, an employer had to meet four conditions. First, the employer had to be located in a health professional shortage area; second, the employer had to have at least 190 acute care beds; third, a certain percentage of the employer's patients had to be Medicare patients; and fourth, a certain percentage of patients had to be Medicaid patients. The H-1C program adopted the protections for American nurses contained in the expired H-1A nursing visa program. For instance, a hospital had to agree to take timely and significant steps to recruit American nurses.…
