Nursing

“ . . . the change to graduate staffing was a rapid fait accompli. Nearly 60 percent of all the hospital beds in the country in the late 1920s were in hospitals with nursing schools; of these 73 percent had no graduate staff nurses and only 15 percent had four or more. ‘Attendants’ predominated in the staff positions in the hospitals without schools. Between 1929 and 1940, however, the number of nursing schools dropped by 574. While the remaining schools often became larger, there was an explosive expansion in the number of graduates working in staff positions. . . . the numbers rose from only 4,000 in 1929 to 28,000 in 1937 to over `00,000 by 1941. By 1941, there were more staff nurses than private-duty nurses and students combined. . . . Blue Cross financing and reimbursement . . . helped to solve some of the expense dilemmas. Hospitals could bury the cost of nursing in the hospital bill and pass it on to the insurer for reimbursement” (Reverby, 188). Only in 1936 did the joint boards of the national nursing associations finally approve licensure for subsidiary nursing workers (aides) a year after NY state passed first mandatory licensure law for all nursing personnel (193). . . . In 1942, Natl. Nursing Council for War Service, in conjunction with the PHS and the American Red Cross, began to initiate more training programs for practical nurses and to approve training of aides (196).