Mississippi would receive $1.61 billion in federal funds for the first year of Medicaid expansion and $1.64 billion in the second year, according to a study authored by the state economist’s office.
The state’s top economists forecasted that Mississippi would collect $1.36 billion in year three, $1.38 billion in year four, and increasing by smaller percentages going forward.
The study, released by state economist Corey Miller and senior economist Sondra Collins of the University Research Center in September 2021, assessed the financial effects if state leaders expanded Medicaid in 2022. Choosing to opt into the expanded federal Medicaid program would not only provide more than 200,000 primarily working Mississippians with basic health care coverage, but it would be a boon to the state’s economy, the experts found.
Importantly, the economists found that the 10% matching costs the state must cover if it expanded Medicaid would be more than covered by health care-related savings to the state and new tax revenue generated.
But of course, the expansion the economists forecasted in the 2021 study did not happen. State leaders, primarily Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn, continue to block efforts to expand Medicaid. Thirty-eight other states have expanded Medicaid, and South Dakota is expected to become the 39th after voters there approved a Medicaid expansion measure on the November ballot.
The Mississippi study pointed out that federal COVID-19 relief legislation, the American Rescue Plan, provides states that have not expanded Medicaid a greater financial incentive to do so. The study estimates that the incentive would result in an additional $306.4 million for Mississippi the first year and $316.2 million the second year.
After two years, the incentives go away. In the University Research Center study, those two years of incentives are included for 2022 and 2023. But under the American Rescue Plan, Mississippi would get those incentives the first two years of Medicaid expansion, regardless of the years that expansion occurred.
Based on the study, which looks an expansion beginning in 2022, the amount of federal funds would decline starting in 2024 because the incentives would go away. But the state would receive similar federal funds on a yearly basis whenever it expands Medicaid. It is just losing out on those funds the longer it waits to adopt the expansion.
The federal Medicaid money coming into the state, whether for the traditional Medicaid program or for expansion, in reality goes to health care providers to pay for services rendered to Medicaid beneficiaries. This would directly help hospitals across the state, which are battling rising health care costs and struggling to cover care for uninsured patients. The federal funds would not stay in state coffers for legislators to dole out in other non-health care areas and it does not go to beneficiaries. But the two years of ARPA-related incentives to expand Medicaid could be used, various studies have pointed out, to mitigate state costs for Medicaid expansion in future years.
The federal government pays 90% of the health care costs for the people receiving benefits through Medicaid expansion. The state is responsible for the additional 10% and for administrative costs.
Those who earn less than 138% of the federal poverty level ($18,754 for an individual) qualify for Medicaid expansion. The state pays a higher matching rate for people on the traditional Medicaid program. Those receiving traditional Medicaid benefits are primarily the disabled, poor pregnant women, poor children and some poor senior citizens.
Even with the state’s mandated match, the University Research Center study concludes that the economic boom caused by Medicaid expansion, based on the billions of dollars in federal funds flowing into Mississippi, will grow the state’s coffers as much as $44 million annually, increase the state’s gross domestic product, modestly grow the state’s population and increase jobs on average of 11,300 per year over a five-year period.
“However, the state would need to increase its current supply of employees in the health care field to realize these job gains,” according to the study.
While running for governor in 2019, then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves was quizzed at a Capitol Press Corps luncheon whether his opposition to expanding Medicaid coverage to working-poor Mississippians was softening.
“I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I don’t know how many ways I can explain this to y’all,” Reeves said.
Reeves’ fellow Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn has frequently given equally deep and erudite explanations of his steadfast opposition to accepting $1 billion a year in federal money to help the working poor and Mississippi’s distressed hospitals.
“From what I know about it, we cannot afford it,” Gunn said tersely to questions as the 2021 legislative session ended, obviously not wanting to discuss the issue further.
For more than a decade, despite most other states expanding Medicaid and despite hospitals, doctors, economists and experts saying it would be a net benefit to the poorest, sickest, most uninsured and most federally dependent state in the country, most of Mississippi’s top elected leaders have refused the offer.
As some hospitals across the state close their doors and others struggle on the brink of collapse — even as the state budget sees record gains from other federal spending — Mississippi leaders’ recalcitrance growingly appears more political than pragmatic.
Reeves and Gunn, who can block expansion from their posts, remain steadfast in their opposition. Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has said he’s open to the idea, as are a small but growing number of legislative Republicans. But Hosemann avoids even saying the words “Medicaid expansion” and hasn’t pressed his colleagues on full expansion. He has, unsuccessfully, pushed for expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage for mothers.
Notably, all three top leaders declined interviews or comments for this story. Medicaid expansion hasn’t gotten a real hearing with the Legislature in years, even as the federal government has tried to sweeten the deal and counter arguments against expansion.
At times, including recently, some state leaders have said they would instead prefer people to have good jobs that provide private insurance. But this has proved elusive, with Mississippi seeing slow job growth, the lowest median income in the nation and among the highest rates of uninsured people.
Mississippi Today compiled a list of the main arguments against Medicaid expansion that opponents have given over the last decade, with counterpoints from proponents:
We can’t afford it/it will tank the state budget
“I don’t see Medicaid expansion as something that is beneficial to the state of Mississippi,” Gunn said in 2021. “I just don’t think the taxpayers can afford it. That is what it boils down to is the taxpayers. It is their money. I just don’t have the taxpayers calling saying we want you to raise taxes so we can expand Medicaid.”
So far, Medicaid expansion hasn’t tanked any states’ budgets, nor have any been forced to raise taxes to cover ACA Medicaid expansion.
Numerous studies, including those by Mississippi’s state economists, say the state — including government coffers — would see a net economic benefit, including growth in GDP and population and the creation of thousands of jobs.
Studies in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana and Virginia showed the states saw a net reduction of more than 4% in spending on their traditional Medicaid programs after expansion. Louisiana’s Medicaid expansion in 2016 brought a 33% reduction in uncompensated care costs for hospitals, including a 55% reduction for rural hospitals.
“For us to enter into an expansion program would be a fool’s errand,” then-Gov. Phil Bryant said in 2014. “I mean, here we would be saying to 300,000 Mississippians, ‘We’re going to provide Medicaid coverage to you,’ and then the federal government through Congress or through the Senate, would do away with or alter the Affordable Care Act, and then we have no way to pay that.”
But the Affordable Care Act, including Medicaid expansion, has survived through three presidents, including Republican Donald Trump who wanted to do away with it, and through multiple congresses, including two under Republican control of both chambers. It has survived numerous court challenges (Mississippi has joined in at least a couple of those).
Mississippi leaders made the same argument to postpone adopting the Medicaid program when it was created in the 1960s. It was one of the last states to do so, in 1969. Arguments that the feds would stop funding it and leave Mississippi in the lurch have proved erroneous, and the Magnolia State has enjoyed the highest rate of federal reimbursement for its existing Medicaid program for many years.
It’s subsidizing people who won’t work/it’s more welfare
“We believe all able-bodied folks ought to get off the couch and go to work,” state Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson, a longtime former lawmaker, said at the Neshoba County Fair in July, mirroring comments many other leaders have made over years. “This is why we oppose Medicaid expansion.”
By its definition, covering people who make up to 138% of poverty level income, Medicaid expansion is aimed at helping the working poor.
“These are people that are working,” said Tim Moore, president of the Mississippi Hospital Association. “By definition, to be at 138% above poverty, you have to have income from somewhere. In fact these are people that are often working multiple jobs, but still don’t have the discretionary income to afford the high cost of premiums.”
“Medicaid expansion is not about putting people on the welfare rolls,” state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said last year. “This is about expanding health care availability to the poor, the disabled, the folks that fall through the cracks, that are not able to get on the Affordable Care Act.”
It would drive up private insurance costs, especially if hospitals help pay for expansion
“If hospitals are going to pay for it, that means that your cost when you go to the hospital is going to go up,” Reeves said during a 2019 gubernatorial election debate, referring to Mississippi hospitals offering to pay the state’s share of expansion. “If you have private insurance, that means that your insurance rates are going to go up.”
Others over the years have warned that expansion in general would drive up private insurance premiums.
But driving down uncompensated care costs for Mississippi hospitals, which has hovered around $600 million a year (lowered temporarily a bit recently because of federal COVID-19 relief money) would allow hospitals to lower prices, Moore said. One recent study said expansion would cut Mississippi hospitals’ uncompensated care by an average of $251.6 million a year from 2020-2030. The same study projects private premiums paid each year would also fall by $52.6 million over the same period.
“Treating people with no coverage forces the costs onto everyone else,” Moore said. “Plus, if people have coverage, they get care in a more timely, more efficient manner. You have less chronic problems, less higher-cost problems.”
As for hospitals paying the state’s share of expansion, as MHA proposed with the MS Cares plan in 2019, Moore said that’s a moot point now, because Mississippi hospitals are struggling so bad financially now that they couldn’t afford to do it.
Medicaid is broken, full of fraud and provides poor health outcomes
When Mississippi lawmakers in 2017 passed an act aimed at preventing fraud in Medicaid and welfare, one concern cited during debate was that there were dead people on Medicaid rolls.
“Are you talking about dead people on the rolls of Medicaid?” one lawmaker asked then-Senate Medicaid Chairman Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula. He responded: “I am talking about everybody, yes. It doesn’t matter if it is dead people. It doesn’t matter if it is people double dipping. They need to be following the law.”
Medicaid doesn’t provide money to beneficiaries. It provides health care, and money goes to providers. As several lawmakers pointed out at the time, it would be hard for dead people to be receiving health care.
Many, including some state politicians, appear to conflate Medicaid with “welfare.” Medicaid is a state-federal health insurance program that, in Mississippi currently, is available only to the disabled, elderly poor people, poor pregnant women and poor children. An able-bodied adult cannot simply be poor and qualify for Medicaid.
Mississippi has been plagued with fraud, corruption or misspending in Medicaid, welfare and other government programs. But this has been mostly committed by politicians, bureaucrats, business people, or large corporations. Beneficiary fraud in all these programs would appear to be a smaller problem.
It is true that Mississippi Medicaid beneficiaries have very poor health outcomes. But given that a large portion of qualifying beneficiaries are very sickly and poor to begin with, this would appear self-fulfilling prophecy. The aim of expansion is to cover the healthier, working poor and provide more preventive care.
“If you start early and provide health care, the outcome is better,” Moore said. “If you put off treating a condition, it gets worse. Diabetes is an example. You have an individual that doesn’t have health care coverage and they have neuropathy but put off treatment. They get a hole in the foot that gets infected. Then they lose a leg. Or they lose eyesight or have renal failure. Then all of a sudden they have a disability and can’t work, and they have to be taken care of. But we could have prevented it, and we could have managed the cost much better.”
Note: This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Mississippi’s state auditor on Monday demanded a private prison operator pay nearly $2 million after the company improperly billed the state for thousands of prison guard shifts that were never actually worked.
State Auditor Shad White announced the demand — the result of an inquiry his office launched in late 2020, following an investigation by The Marshall Project that revealed the company’s ghost workers practice.
White’s audit found that Management & Training Corporation, the country’s third-largest private prison company, did not notify or credit Mississippi’s Department of Corrections when staffing at a prison run by MTC fell below minimum requirements, as agreed to in their contract. The auditor is demanding about $1.4 million for unfilled shifts between 2017 and 2020, and just under $600,000 in interest and recovery costs. White called it one of the largest demands issued during his four years in office.
“We look forward to a swift recovery of these funds,” White said in a press release. MTC has 30 days to make payment, the auditor’s office said, or the case will be referred to the state’s attorney general.
MTC spokesman David Martinson declined to answer questions Monday. In a statement, he wrote the company has paid vacancy penalties under the terms of the contract, and that the auditor’s demands are inconsistent with the contract. He did not elaborate.
The Marshall Project investigation showed how MTC collected millions of dollars in Mississippi by routinely charging the corrections department for vacant security positions the company was required to fill. The practice illustrated a perverse financial incentive unique to private prisons: While fewer workers meant more danger for staff and incarcerated people, it created more profit for MTC.
The news investigation highlighted the experience of Correctional Officer Darrell Adams, who was nearly killed in 2019 when he was attacked by a prisoner during an overnight shift where Adams was doing the work of eight officers in four different buildings.
Adams worked at the Marshall County Correctional Facility, near the Tennessee border, where the state’s audit found that MTC billed for 12,000 unfilled mandatory shifts in the four-year
period. MTC operated two other Mississippi prisons during the same period, but the auditor’s demand letter only addressed the Marshall County prison.
The Marshall Project also exposed a ghost worker problem at the two other MTC prisons. Using monthly invoices and data on vacant positions, the news organization estimated that between 2013 and 2019, the state paid MTC about $7 million combined for no-show workers at the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, south of Natchez, and the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, near Meridian.
When asked Monday if payment would be sought from MTC for ghost workers at those other facilities, a spokesperson for the state auditor’s office wrote, “Our work is not over.”
The Marshall Project’s investigation in 2020 was published in partnership with The Clarion-Ledger, Mississippi Today and The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.
A Jackson-based conservative think-tank filed a lawsuit Monday that aims to clear up a bizarre legal conundrum in Mississippi: that abortion is technically both legal and illegal at the same time.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy filed a lawsuit Monday in an attempt to get the state Supreme Court to reverse its 1998 ruling that said the Mississippi Constitution provides a right to an abortion.
That decades-old ruling — Pro Choice Mississippi v. Fordice — has been in conflict with two new state laws that took effect this summer after the U.S. Supreme overturned Roe v. Wade, which had previously established a national right to an abortion.
After the U.S. Supreme Court decision in late June overturning Roe v. Wade, two Mississippi laws went into effect. One banned all abortions except in cases of rape and when the life of the mother was in jeopardy. A second law banned all abortions except for cases of medical emergency.
But officials at Mississippi Center for Public Policy say those two laws are in conflict with the state Supreme Court ruling that said the state constitution provides a right to an abortion. The center’s lawsuit attempts to ensure the two new laws that restrict abortion are not negated by the 1998 Pro Choice Mississippi v. Fordice ruling.
“This legal uncertainty has placed Mississippi physicians in an impossible ‘Catch-22,’” said the center’s news release. “…Whether elective abortions are ‘lawful’ in Mississippi depends on whether the Mississippi Supreme Court’s opinion in Fordice is still valid.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade came in a case brought by Mississippi and argued by the office of state Attorney General Lynn Fitch. The landmark case — Dobbs v. Jackson Women Health Organization — resulted in the state’s only abortion clinic closing.
“In the Dobbs case, Mississippi secured a major victory for human rights and the rule of law,” said Aaron Rice, director of the Mississippi Justice Institute, which is the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. “Now it’s time to finish the job and protect the right to life in the state that took Roe down.”
The case was filed in Hinds County Chancery Court. The press release said it will be up to the state Supreme Court to ultimately rule on whether to reverse the ruling providing a right to an abortion in the Mississippi Constitution.
Right after the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, then providing abortion services in Jackson, took legal action in Hinds County Chancery Court trying to block the enactment of the laws banning abortion in Mississippi. The Mississippi Center for Justice, arguing on behalf of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said that the state laws banning abortions would not trump the Mississippi Supreme Court ruling saying that the Constitution provided a right to an abortion.
In an unusual ruling in early July, Chancery Judge Debbra Halford of Meadville, appointed to hear the case by the state Supreme Court, refused to block the laws banning abortions. One of her primary reasons for not blocking the laws is because she predicted the current state Supreme Court would reverse the ruling providing a right to abortion in the Mississippi Constitution.
The Mississippi Center for Justice appealed to the Supreme Court. But the state’s highest court refused to take up the case on an expedited schedule. During the uncertainty, Jackson Women’s Health Organization closed and the Mississippi Center for Justice dropped the appeal.
Now the conservative leaning Mississippi Center for Public Policy is trying to renew the case.
“We will review this lawsuit and consider whether we should intervene,” said Rob McDuff, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice that represented the Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Mississippi Justice Institute has brought the lawsuit on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, according to the news release.
In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Janet Parker from Innovate Mississippi. Janet serves as the director of Business Development and marketing at Innovate Mississippi. She oversees all marketing, public relations, and corporate fundraising functions with the ultimate goal of working with partner organizations and companies to grow Mississippi’s innovation ecosystem — and the state economy.
She is a Mississippian by choice, heralding originally from Illinois. In her past life, she was vice president of public relations for Maris, West & Baker Advertising and a business consultant and communications coach working with Fortune 500 clients in the U.S., Canada and Trinidad.
If she looks familiar, she was the host of the Emmy-Award winning TV show, “Mississippi Outdoors” on MPB and has appeared on TV commercials, radio ads and print promotions. She also had an 11-year career as an award-winning pharmaceutical sales representative. In 2012, she was named one of the Business Women in Mississippi by the “Mississippi Business Journal”.
The theme for the 2022 Restoration Summit, held every November at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, was “purposeful restoration.”
“We’re not doing random acts of restoration,” said Chris Wells, executive director at the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
In watching the state’s years-long effort to spend the roughly $2 billion provided to it from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, stakeholders in the past have criticized Mississippi for not having a centralized game plan. Others questioned the state’s commitment to one of it’s purported top goals: improving water quality.
On Thursday evening, Wells addressed the former criticism head on while the state announced $65 million in new project spending between the RESTORE Act funds and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)..
“A lot of these projects seem disjointed, they’re not independent of each other, though,” he said of the state’s efforts thus far. “We do try to piece this puzzle together. We know what’s good for water quality is good for oysters and vice versa, building marsh habitat and leveraging different projects against each other, being able to take a holistic approach to things.”
One example MDEQ presented is the $50 million Hancock County Living Shoreline: Hoping to improve shipping infrastructure, the state dredged sediment from the channel at Port Bienville, and then used the sediment to rebuild 46 acres of new marsh to Heron Bay. MDEQ is planning to add more marsh to the area with dredged sediment from Bayou Caddy.
Similarly, MDEQ pointed to a group of projects in Bay St. Louis, including a 20-acre non-harvestable reef the Nature Conservancy built with the long-term goal of repopulating local oysters. The state also built in the bay a 1,600-foot line of breakwaters comprised of concrete rings, which give oysters a place to grow and helps reduce erosion.
The state, which has currently obligated $809.8 million of the $2 billion it’s set to receive, will continue to receive funds from the BP settlement until 2031.
A lot of the state’s environmental projects, such as rebuilding marsh and improving water quality, are long-term efforts that have taken longer to receive funds, while many of the state’s completed projects so far — such as an aquarium in Gulfport and a science center in Pearlington — are aimed at economic restoration.
In the last year, according to the state’s project tracker, the project seeing the most money in spending has been improving the runway at the Trent Lott International Airport in Moss Point, with $4.2 million in expenditures from 2021 to 2022. Other projects that saw large amounts of spending in the last year include:
Infrastructure improvements at Port Bienville: $3.7 million
Constructing living shorelines and reefs: $2.5 million
Water quality improvement through upgrading storm water and wastewater systems: $2 million
Using dredged materials to restore marsh: $1.3 million
New project spending announced Thursday between the RESTORE Act funds and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF):
RESTORE projects (Direct component, Bucket 1):
Lowery Island Restoration ($4.4 million) — create a marina and mixed-use district.
Pearl River Community College Hancock Aviation Aerospace Workforce Academy ($2.09 million) — purchase equipment to support the establishment of PRCC Aerospace Workforce Academy.
The Kiln Utility District and Fire District Water and Sewer Expansion Project ($3 million) — expand water and sewer to support increased development.
Highway 609 Washington Street Gateway Phase II ($5.5 million) — construct pedestrian friendly features including sidewalks, crosswalks, and landscaped median under Phase II from Old Fort Bayou to Highway 90.
Trent Lott International Airport North Apron Expansion ($2.4 million) — expand the north apron of the Trent Lott International Airport.
Magnificent Mile: I-10 Highwqy 63 Corridor Improvement ($5.5 million) — investment in road infrastructure to alleviate traffic congestion and encourage development.
Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport Secondary RunwayExtension ($2.2 million) — funding will expand the secondary runway.
Port Bienville Railroad Intermodal Expansion ($3.3 million) — construction of a 7-track classification yard and the addition of a truck-to-rail intermodal facility expansion.
Jones Park Expansion Parking Areas ($1.65 million) — expand parking areas at Jones Park.
Walter Anderson Museum of Art Creative Complex ($1.2 million) — provide funding for facility construction and new program implementation.
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Workforce Training ($4.95 million) — development of curricula and workforce development program designed to meet job market needs.
Health Professions for our Community (HEALP): Health Professions Center of Excellence ($6.6 million) — project will focus on developing a Health Professionals Center of Excellence.
Marina at Front Beach ($5.5 million) — funding to convert derelict shrimp processing plant to marina and event center.
Institute of Marine Mammal Studies Outreach and Ecotourism ($875,000) — enhance and expand ecotourism around Gulf Coast marine resources.
St. Stanislaus and Ocean Springs Environmental Education ($566,500) — enhance environmental science programs related to marine ecosystem education.
NFWF:
Wolf River headwaters acquisition ($15,103,000) — acquire approximately 14,000 acres along the Wolf River south of Highway 53 to help improve water quality and quantity.
Gulf Islands National Seashore ($1,578,000) — continue invasive species removal and control work out on the Gulf Islands National Seashore with the National Park Service.
OCEAN SPRINGS — Amber Granger, 38, took her first health care job more than two decades ago as a nursing assistant.
She went back to school to be a lab technician, then moved into management. She dreamed of becoming a nurse but she couldn’t give up her income – or take on anymore student debt – for nursing school.
Her career aspirations sat on hold until the Singing River Healthcare Academy gave her the nudge she needed. The new academy is the state’s first-ever medical apprenticeship program.
The academy is part of the Singing River Health System’s – and state and local leadership’s – answer to the major staffing shortages plaguing the state’s health care system.
“If I can advance my career, continue to work, and provide for my family then why not apply?” said Granger, a Gulfport resident. “I got the call that I was accepted and it was surreal until my first day of school.”
Amber Granger, left, poses with nursing instructor Lauren Meaut during the Singing River Healthcare Academy’s groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 10, 2022. (Photo: Sara DiNatale)
Now Granger is on her way to become a licensed practical nurse. She’s in a cohort of 15 in the fledgling academy, which won’t have a dedicated homebase until a new complex is constructed. The program allows students to train for a host of much-needed health care jobs without charge and while getting paid for on-the-job training.
On Thursday, Gov. Tate Reeves gathered with hospital leaders to break ground on the academy’s planned four-story building. The new training center will be a short drive from Singing River’s Ocean Springs hospital campus on Bienville Boulevard.
“This transformative program is going to have a huge impact on the Mississippi Gulf Coast,” Reeves said during Thursday’s celebration. “And, quite frankly, it’s going to have a huge impact on the entire state of Mississippi.”
Singing River CEO Tiffany Murdock said the program projects to have 1,000 students in the fall of 2024. She plans to more than quadruple that annual count once the academy’s building is open to students.
Reeves said the academy fits the state’s overall approach to strengthening the economy through workforce development by ensuring Mississippians have access to training for the state’s most in-demand and high-paying positions.
“This academy will strengthen the pipeline of health care professionals in Mississippi,” he said, “and will help entice people to live, learn and work right here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”
Lauren Fernandez, a 33-year-old Ocean Springs resident, is one of the program’s recent graduates. The former Army medic is now a surgical technologist. She aids surgeons from a procedure’s start to finish.
“I had gotten out of health care for a while,” Fernandez said, “and I debated going back for surgical tech school. But then I saw the apprenticeship program and I was like, ‘This is meant to be.’”
In addition to practical nurses and surgical technologists, the program also trains nursing assistants, medical assistants, and phlebotomists.
Hospitals have been facing staffing shortages since before the pandemic, but the issues peaked as the worst of COVID-19 dragged on. Nurses left the field altogether, took on less-stressful nursing jobs outside a hospital setting, or became contracted travel nurses for higher pay.
Mississippi hospitals reported about 3,000 total nursing vacancies at the end of 2021, according to a survey by the Mississippi Hospital Association.
“I can’t be 2,500 people,” Granger said, referring to the state’s massive nursing shortages, “but I can fill the gap of one.”
