U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh visited Yale New Haven Hospital on Friday to highlight the hospital’s registered apprenticeship program.
The federally funded $10 million, four-year training program is part of the Biden administration's attempt to tackle a shortage of healthcare workers in the country.
“We are headed toward a real problem in this country," Walsh said. "We saw it highlighted bigtime with COVID-19 when a lot of nurses left the profession because of stress and all they went through."
“And in the next coming years at the Department of Labor we are working really hard to tackle that issue. And if we don’t, we’ll have a nursing crisis,” he added.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of New Haven, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, joined Walsh for the visit.
“We have such an enormous shortage of patient care technicians and nurses that this is the best investment we can make in terms of addressing the healthcare issue that we have today," DeLauro said.
Patient care technicians work under nurses or physician supervisors and see patients daily for vital signs, blood draws and other procedures.
The Yale New Haven program offers certification after a year of classroom work and on-the-job training. The apprentices would then be offered full-time positions at the hospital. The program hopes to bring 1,250 apprentices into the profession in the next four years.
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