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SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A Sioux City hospital is recruiting nurses from overseas to fill a growing number of vacancies.
UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer, Priscilla Stokes, says the retirements of longtime nurses combined with an increasing number of aging baby boomers has led the hospital to start international recruitment.
Nicola Simms, who is from Jamaica, was offered a job at St. Luke's in February. She has worked as a registered nurse in Jamaica for 19 years, and is a trained midwife. Simms said she moved to the U.S. because she wanted to experience a different culture and thought it would be a good experience for her family.
Florinda Sapico is from the Philippines and started working at St. Luke's in March.
"It's my dream to come and experience the life here in the U.S.," Sapico said. "In the Philippines there are a lot of people wanting to come here to the U.S. They take nursing in order to come."
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 1.2 million job openings for nurses by 2020 because of growth and the need for replacements, according to the Sioux City Journal (http://bit.ly/2bP0R6f ). The bureau also lists nursing as a top occupation for job growth through 2022.
Stokes says St. Luke's started considering hiring nurses from abroad last year, after she got the idea from a colleague who came to the U.S. 30 years ago from the Philippines to work as a nurse.
The hospital currently employs four nurses from Jamaica and the Philippines.
"We're looking at different ways to do things that we never would have even been forced to look at before," said Stokes. "This has actually been a real win for us. We've been trying to improve our ethnicity mix here at St. Luke's over the last five years or so."
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Information from: Sioux City Journal, http://www.siouxcityjournal.com
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