Fourteen US senators wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge last week, urging him to delay the effective date of a Department of Homeland Security regulation that they are concerned will aggravate the country’s current nursing shortage and disrupt the delivery of health care services in many hospitals. 

Section 343 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act is of concern to the lawmakers because it states that health care workers, excluding physicians, must acquire a certificate from the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to be admitted to the US to work in their fields.  In the letter, the lawmakers state that this condition is superfluous in that it applies to foreign health care workers currently licensed to work in a state, who have passed a state licensing exam, and to foreign professionals who were educated n the United States.

The group of senators suggests that implementation of this regulation will increasingly burden CGFNS’s workload and cause delays to the already lengthy process of obtaining certificates. 

The Senators have urged DHS to postpone the effective date of the regulation until October 1, 2005, in order to provide these nurses time to complete the certification process rather than deem these nurses unable to work.