across the country more than 100 thousand registered nurses left the profession during the pandemic and another 600 thousand plan to leave in the next four years according to a recent report by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing it's led to a nursing shortage that's especially bad here in New Jersey where thousands of nursing positions are vacant putting the quality of patient care at risk and leaving existing nurses overworked and burned out federal funding is coming to New Jersey to train the next generation of nurses and Ted Goldberg explains how one New Jersey University will use the money to improve its equipment and its training great things are happening in Clifton New Jersey and Nutley Congressman Bill Pascrell stopped by Seton Hall's College of Nursing to commemorate a Federal grant awarding them more than a million dollars that money will be used to train and equip the next generation of medical professionals many of whom found their calling while growing up in New Jersey my cousin was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when he was eight days old and he's one of my best friends and so seeing his interactions with all of his nurses made me want to be a nurse and work with kids in middle school I had a medical emergency and it was rest for emergency surgery it's really scary to have that experience as anyone can imagine and the nurses at the hospital were just so incredibly kind and caring and really made it a much more bearable experience I love the idea of being a physician assistant because it gives me a lot of freedom to be in health care in many different areas because if you're a doctor you're tied to one specialty and as a PA you can move around yeah and I think we're all kind of here just because we have such a passion about helping people those federal funds guns might come in handy since New Jersey has a ton of job openings for nurses 13 000 of them according to the job listing website adzuna these students say that shortage is great for their job prospects but not so great for patients it's nice to hear that there are so many jobs available for nurses especially as look as I was looking for one however it is a bit discouraging because it does mean that there are all of these openings which means that we have a shortage of nurses which is obviously a problem and it's going to have effects on patient care I hope that eventually they'll be more that these vacancies won't exist so that there are enough nurses for everyone who needs care we need nurses we need doctors if we can't see that we're totally blind after losing so many nurses during the pandemic the state is trying to encourage people to stay by waiving renewal fees for nursing licenses Congressman Pascrell says nurses and physician assistants were among the unsung heroes when kovid was at its worst they kept America whole an enormous personal cost I don't know if we've thanked you enough they are perhaps the true heroes of those tragic years for Seton Hall These funds will help pay for simulation Labs or Sim Labs which feature eerily life-like mannequins for students to practice on future nurses like Riley Williams say they're a tremendous help I think that Sim labs are so helpful at getting the time to practice in these Labs with patients that are really realistic but you don't have the like you have safeguards it's really helpful and it makes I think it really helps us become better nurses nurses our use of doing much with little but here they're able to do even more with a little more so um so we do appreciate all of your support in Nutley I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News