Hospital Closes One of Its Acute Care Wings
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OXNARD — Dramatizing a countywide nursing shortage, St. John’s Regional Medical Center is closing one of its acute care wings because it can no longer afford to hire expensive substitute nurses.
Hospital officials also said Wednesday that it will raise the pay of its critical care nurses by 24%, an increase that could ignite a bidding war for nurses with other county hospitals.
The Oxnard hospital is closing a wing despite treating record numbers of patients because a shortage of staff nurses has forced the hospital to hire so many substitute caregivers that it is losing money, officials said.
But in raising the pay of its highly skilled nurses by $5 an hour, the county’s largest hospital is taking the already stiff competition for nurses to a new level.
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