Hospitals in Evanston and across the country are reporting a severe nursing shortage, forcing nurses to pick up extra shifts, but hospital officials say is not hurting patient care.

Twelve percent of the nursing positions at Evanston Hospital are vacant, said nurse recruiter Sabrina Miller. The American Hospital Association declares a nursing “crisis” when the national level of open nursing positions climbs above 8 percent.

Miller said nurses are working harder to keep all the shifts running smoothly. Although Evanston Hospital has not reported a change in nurse-to-patient ratios or hospital efficiency, Miller said nurses’ stress and workload have increased.

“When there are (fewer) nurses, they have to take to take more calls and pick up extra shifts,” said Dawn Kingston, a professional recruiter for Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana-Champaign, Ill. “Most are willing to do this short term, but after a while it gets old.”

Carle and thousands of hospitals nationwide also are feeling the nursing crunch, Kingston said.

Located just outside of the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign campus, Carle has 12 percent of its nursing positions open.

In hospitals nationwide, an average of 25 percent of nursing positions are unfilled, said Gretchen Robbins, Carle’s director of public relations.

“Our nursing and human resources people have done a lot of work to foster an emerging work force by promoting nursing education and programs for continuing education in the community,” Robbins said.

Some experts attribute the national nursing shortage to the rise of managed care, faltering state economies and increased opportunities for women in other sectors of the job market.

In California, Gov. Gray Davis announced in January that the state would spend $60 million to hire and train new nurses. He also proposed that California set mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios for state hospitals in an effort to improve the quality of patient care.

Despite the efforts of states like California and hospitals’ individual outreach campaigns, specialty fields within nursing are seeing huge numbers of open positions, reported a 1998 article in NurseWeek.

Why are the numbers of nursing vacancies so staggering?

The answer may lie in the advancement of women’s rights, Evanston Hospital’s Miller said.

“Women have realized that nursing is a hard physical job,” she said. “Many of them have chosen to go into the other fields that have recently been opened to them.”