Bill would allow nurses with outside licenses to practice on Guam

The COVID-pandemic has underscored Guam's severe shortage of nurses. A bill has been introduced to join a national nursing licensure program that would allow member nurses from other jurisdictions to use their licenses here, and augment the understaffing at our local hospitals.

The measure introduced by Sen. Mary Torres and Speaker Tina Barnes allows Guam to adopt the nursing licensure compact, already adopted by 34 states. Under the NLC, nurses from those states can use their license in any of the other member jurisdictions. Guam Regional Medical City Chief Nursing officer Jennifer Cruz, who supports the bill, offered this analogy:

“We all have a driver’s license, hopefully not expired, your Guam drivers license allows you to drive in any state, this same process can be applied to our nurse licensure laws allowing a nurse that has a license in a nurse compact law state to be qualified to be licensed in Guam,” she said.

Guam Memorial Hospital CEO and registered nurse Lillian Posadas said the bill would also make it easier for active duty and dependent nurses stationed here, to work at the civilian hospitals.

“Many military nurses are discouraged right now because of this current process that we have for nurses to get a license,” she said.

But there’s another issue that hurts recruitment: GovGuam nursing salaries are still below the national average, and the hospitals often lose RN’s to better pay and better hours.

“We lost twenty RN's throughout this period, 20 registered nurses just within this time frame of six, seven months,” Posadas said. “And so, therefore, it is imperative that we really address and adjust the current salary structure for nurses cause then if we don’t, for sure more nurses are going to leave because of this nurse NLC.”

Compact members have access to a shared database of nurses’ work and disciplinary history, which can be reviewed as part of the recruitment process.