TRAIN Act hopes to curb post-COVID nursing shortage

WHEELING, W.Va. (WTRF) — The long shadow of COVID still hangs over many professions, but none have struggled as much as nursing.

So many were driven away by the pressure and danger that it’s become a years-long campaign to hire them back.

But with so many having left the field—Congress is focused on making sure the next generation of nurses is equipped to handle an uncertain future.

The Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown co-sponsored TRAIN Act takes aim at what are called clawbacks.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will no longer be reimbursed for payments made to nursing schools nationwide.

The senator says equipping them with more resources is the least they can do.

We know that nurses have been overworked, longer hours, exposed to more difficult conditions from the long hours exposed to the pandemic, to the virus, and some nurses died, many nurses retired.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN, (D)-OHIO

There are six of these nurse training facilities in Ohio and around 100 in the country.

The TRAIN Act has already been signed into law as part of 2023’s omnibus funding bill.

The credit for the plan is shared between Ohio and West Virginia, as Senator Shelley Moore Capito introduced it alongside Senator Brown.