BURLINGTON, Vermont (WCAX) – Vermont will need 9,000 health care workers over the next decade, according to leaders who met in Burlington on Friday to discuss the issue.

UVM Medical Center is asking Vermont regulators for a double-digit rate increase, largely due to rising labor costs.Statewide, hospitals spent him $115 million last year on itinerant nurses

A roundtable discussion at UVMMC was attended by healthcare leaders, educators and officials from the Biden administration. Senator Bernie Sanders has spent most of his political career on health care issues. According to him, the problem he has is twofold. The inability to train enough workers and uncontrollable costs.

And he says Vermont Institute of Technology and other schools that train nurses don’t have the space to accommodate all the students trying to enter the field.

New federal funding for the National Health Service Corps aims to solve this problem piecemeal. This program pays medical school bills to professionals working in underserved areas. “We are taking on service mandates, training more people, and having people to practice in the most difficult places to ensure that we can deliver medical services,” said Health Resource Services Management. bureau’s Carol Johnson said.

She acknowledges that some reforms will take years and will require rethinking the American healthcare system. to make sure we are training the next generation of nurses.”

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