Federal officials have issued a one-year extension of the deadline for Canadian and Mexican health care workers to obtain more rigorous credentials before working in the United States, preventing what hospitals in border states such as Maine say would have resulted in crisis level staffing shortages, the Associated Press reports. The law, which requires non-physician health care workers from Canada and Mexico to pass proficiency and English-competency exams in order to earn U.S. licenses, was expected to result in a loss of as many as 15,000 nurses throughout the nation; Canadian nurses account for up to 40% of the nursing staff in U.S. hospitals along the U.S.-Canada border. Maine-based Houlton Regional Hospital, which employs 30 Canadian nurses, was prepared to temporarily close its ICU and maternity ward if the law went into effect as planned on July 26, according to the hospital’s CEO. A spokesperson for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says that most foreign nurses in Maine have passed the necessary exams and submitted the required materials but have not been certified because their paperwork is “tied up in processing.” The new deadline applies to health care workers who began working in the United States prior to Sept. 2, 2003, and hold licenses from a U.S. jurisdiction (Canfield, AP, 7/20; Daily Briefing, 7/14).
