Sacramento – This week, Assemblyman Devon Mathis introduced AB 2532, which would allow prospective nursing students residing within a medically underserved area to receive special consideration when applying to community college nursing programs. This bill would also extend an authorization currently granted to community colleges to utilize a multi-criteria screening process until 2030.
“For far too long, rural communities have dealt with critical staffing shortages in our hospitals and healthcare facilities despite longstanding evidence showing that these communities require medical services at a much higher rate than non-rural areas. Hearing from and working with healthcare stakeholders in my district, it is very clear to me that the nursing shortage is a crisis that the Central Valley knows all too well. As a result of these worrying conversations, I have introduced a bill that would allow nursing applicants residing in medically underserved communities, which more often than not includes rural regions, to be included in a special applicant screening criteria that community college nursing programs currently use to admit incoming students. This bill will help Valley hospitals and healthcare facilities reduce staffing shortages by increasing the number of nurses from communities like mine who will serve in our medically underserved areas which desperately need their assistance.”
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