The national nursing shortage that’s been going on for years was made worse in southeast Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina. But now, one hospital has decided to do something about it; the solution has even attracted new residents to the area.

Men and women of all ages and backgrounds left careers as school teachers, accountants and social workers to be part of that solution locally.

“Well, even before Katrina, New Orleans was having a problem with its amount of nursing care workforce,” said Melanie Green, RNC Dean of Nursing, Our Lady of the Lake College. “Post-Katrina, of course, the healthcare needs became even greater.”

Nancy Cassagner, Acting CEO of West Jefferson Medical Center, said the shortage forced area hospitals to hire “agency nurses,” contract nurses who’re paid nearly double the price of a regular nurse.

"We can’t afford to live at that level (of expense) anymore,” Cassagner said.

Nurses have been brought in from all over the world to ease the problem, so West Jefferson Medical Center partnered with Our Lady of the Lake College in Baton Rouge to open their own nursing school program right in the hospital.

“West Jefferson said, what can we do to try to help ourselves, rather than always saying we have a problem, what can we do to fix it?” Cassagner said.

More than 100 potential students applied for 50 slots. The first class of 39 students began learning in an accelerated program this week, which will squeeze two years of classroom work and on-site clinical training into nine and a half months.

Meg Ishiyana, a student from Japan, left her career as a magazine reporter to join the program.

“It's nursing; it's very international…I can go anywhere with my skill and longer term, when I retire, I can still volunteer,” she said.

This fast track class not only helps the students in it, but it also helps West Jefferson because all of the students who’re getting financial assistance, and most of the students in general, have committed to stay at West Jefferson for three years.

Critical care nurses in the emergency room and intensive care unit are most needed.

“Nurses at the bedside, in acute care hospitals, are absolutely necessary to quality of patient care,” Green said.

It's a career that can not only be personally fulfilling, but lucrative as well.

“Nursing salaries, usually their base is somewhere around $20 to $22 dollars an hour,” Green said. “But when you begin to add differentials, a new nurse coming out can easily make a minimum wage of $50,000 a year and as high as $70,000 to $80,000.”

For more about the accelerated nursing degree program, call West Jefferson Medical Center in Jefferson Parish or Our Lady of the Lake College in Baton Rouge.