State funds UNM­Taos
nursing program
State funds UNM­Taos nursing program

By Chandra Johnson

The Taos News

UNM-Taos’ ailing nursing program has been restored to health thanks to a grant from the New Mexico Higher Education Department, dean of instruction Jim Gilroy reported Tuesday (Aug. 19).

“Ana Abeyta and I have been trying since 1999 to get a nursing program here because of the major demands we were getting from the health com­munity,” Gilroy said. “Holy Cross Hospital has been a partner every step of the way and we look forward to more collaboration with them.”

The program was in dan­ger of being eliminated from UNM-Taos last spring when the state Legislature did not fully fund UNM main campus’ request for program funding. The news of the possible cut came just as UNM-Taos grad­uated its first fleet of nurses.

The $337,000 grant is designed to help the program get off the ground and become self-sustaining, program pio­neer and professor Marty Hewlett said .

“This is critical. The nursing shortage nationwide is also in Taos. We’re losing senior nurs­es at an alarming rate. That is, they’re retiring,” Hewlett said. “We had the program for two years and then suddenly we were informed that we might not be able to continue.”

And the money is techni­cally earmarked for workforce development, which feeds the community, UNM-Taos direc­tor Kate O’Neill said.

“We’re setting up the pro­gram so that we can serve the community and so that people can be trained here and stay here,” O’Neill said.

The program officially began in 2006, when Gilroy and others in the health com­munity began to literally search for a nursing program, eventually finding willing vol­unteers in Luna Community College in Las Vegas.

After just two years, the college had to stop offering the program to UNM-Taos because of the cost. From there, the program became an extension of the college of nursing at UNM, Gilroy said. With the cut in funds, UNM­Taos was suddenly on its own. Holy Cross Hospital CEO Kean Spellman also had a lot to worry about. “When we heard the disappointing news about the funding, Kate O’Neill, Jim Gilroy and I invited UNM offi­cials to the hospital and collec­tively made the case that this was the exact opposite of what the state should do,” Spellman said. “We weren’t going to take no for an answer.”

And they hardly could. Spellman said that since he began working at Holy Cross Hospital about 10 years ago, the hospital has added about 120 nursing positions.

“To keep up with growth, we need a stronger supply of nurses,” Spellman said.

But with the new program set to take on its first group of about 8-12 students in August 2009, Spellman might just get his personnel wishes granted, and Taos may have an edge on the nursing shortage.

The new program will be slightly different from the old one, which offered a bachelor’s program through the main campus’ college of nursing. This program, which would be unique to UNM­Taos, would prepare students up to the level of becoming a Registered Nurse, after which time they could transfer to the bachelor’s program at the main campus.

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