They are needed now, more than ever. 

The legislature’s health committee held a virtual roundtable discussion today on building nursing capacity on Guam, especially in this time of COVID-pandemic. University of Guam School of Nursing dean Dr. Margaret Hattori-Uchima said 26 members of the recent senior class that graduated this spring are all now working at the two civilian hospitals and local clinics. There are also another 73 nursing students in the junior and sophomore classes. In addition to registered nurses there is also an urgent need for certified nurse assistants, but Hattori-Uchima said faculty and staff are overwhelmed. 

"I just don’t know how much more the schools can do," she said. "Our faculty have not had a break since March. They worked during spring break, I’m sorry. I just feel that we can’t cut short the BS-N, but we can’t cut short the CNA. I mean we can’t not fund CNA and caregiver.  There’s hundreds of people in the homes who don’t have trained caregivers."

She says they are working on getting board approval to temporarily lower the required educational hours for certified nurse assistant certification, and then allow the CNA’s to go back to school at a later time to complete their coursework.