AUGUSTA, Maine (WGAN & AP) Governor Janet Mills unveiled a series of initiatives aimed at bolstering the state’s healthcare workforce.
The governor’s visit to Maine General Medical Center in Augusta on Monday afternoon came the same week the state will begin enforcing its vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. It goes into effect Friday.
The initiatives are part of the Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan.
One of them would make use of $4 million to provide financial support like student loan relief to allow more people to find jobs in the field.
Another program, backed by $8.5 million from the state’s recovery plan, is aimed at allowing employees to attain advanced health care credentials.
The governor also launched a new $1.5 million recruitment effort, which her office says will “promote the value and importance of the health care profession with the goal of recruiting more people, especially young adults, into the field.”
In a statement, Mills said:
“Through these forthcoming initiatives, we want to make it easier and more affordable for people, especially young people, to pursue careers in health care and continue to move up the career ladder into higher-paying jobs because they provide tremendous opportunity to do life-saving work and make a good wage with good benefits. We look forward to launching these programs at the end of the year, which will help Maine people and strengthen our health care workforce in the long-run.”
The governor’s critics have pointed to the vaccine mandate, under which unvaccinated workers will lose their jobs if they’re not vaccinated by Friday’s deadline, as a reason for staffing shortages at hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Other factors, like burnout over the course of the pandemic, are also being blamed.
Mills said the state will implement the moves by the end of the year.
Maine has lost jobs during the pandemic, and more than 10% of that loss has come in the health care workforce.
Health care facilities across the state “have had to grapple with a shortage of workers and the pandemic has only made the problem worse,” Mills said.
