Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead employs 150 nurses, whereas Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport has a total of 48 nurses on staff.

"We are hovering with a 6 to 7 percent vacancy rate, which is better than the Long Island and state average," said Gerard Zunno, vice president of patient care services at PBMC. Four full-time nursing positions are currently being advertised there, he said

Eastern Long Island Hospitals in better shape, with only one vacant part-time nursing position, according to Patricia Pispisa, vice president of patient services at ELIH.

HANYS, which surveyed 125 hospitals throughout the state, found that the average vacancy rate for registered nurses jumped from 6.38 percent in 2006 to 8.8 percent in 2007. The national average is also 8.8 percent, according to HANYS. If the statewide trend continues, New York will have 17,000 fewer nurses by 2010 and will be short 44,000 nurses by 2020, according to HANYS.

It also reports that there may not be enough health-care workers to treat the aging baby boomer generation.

"The nursing situation is somewhat complex," said Mr. Zunno. Even though there is a statewide nursing shortage, thousands of prospective nurses are being turned away from programs, he said.

Assemblyman Marc Alessi (D-Wading River) said, "The real problem is that there are no instructors. Nurses take a pay cut from becoming a professor to train aspiring nurses."

Both HANYS and state officials are advocating the passage of Senate and Assembly legislation that would allocate more state funding and resources to nursing schools and health-care providers statewide. Educators, however, share a different opinion.

Salaries and compensation for professors at Eastern Suffolk BOCES and Suffolk County Community College are considered competitive, according to each school's officials. Carol Powell, program administrator for health at BOCES, pointed to another cause for the nursing decline.

"People view jobs with the mentality: 'What's in it for me?'ââ" she said. "One of the biggest problems with the field is that people go in thinking it's financially rewarding." What Ms. Powell believes is the driving force behind the high turnover rate is that new nurses lack field experience.

The dynamics change when students leave the classroom and join the nursing workforce, Ms. Powell said. Many students aren't prepared to deal with the physical, psychological and emotional stress that nursing entails. For this reason, she said, the turnover rate for young nurses is about six months to a year. As a result, seasoned nurses who might instruct fledging staff members can be overworked and patient care can decline as a result.

Eastern Suffolk BOCES offers a 17-month licensed practical nurse program, two-thirds of which is spent "in the field," Ms. Powell said. Similarly, SCCC has partnerships with seven Long Island hospitals. In fact, these partnerships, officials from both the schools and the hospitals agree, are an integral reason why the East End isn't being hit as hard by the nursing shortage.

ELIH's nursing department, for example, established a partnership with SCCC in 2006 to train its top nursing students. Three full-time students work at the hospital for two years while they complete their degrees. In six years' time, nine young nurses can be trained on-site, Ms. Pispisa said.

Once training is complete, these nurses often stay to work at the hospital. Prior to this program, the hospital had experienced nursing shortages, but it hasn't encountered significant staffing problems since the program's inception.

One new educational effort is also under way.

SUNY/Empire State College is offering a new online bachelor of science degree in nursing this fall. To help counteract the nursing shortage, Empire designed the program to target "mid-career" nurses or those who hold an RN diploma but want to advance their education while continuing to work in the field, said Kirk Starczewski, spokesman for Empire State College.

Nurses would complete 60 to 68 credits by mixing a Web-based format with hands-on learning, under a designated mentor. If the program is successful, nearly 500 new baccalaureate nurses will graduate from the program in 10 years, Mr. Starczewski said

According to HANYS, the health-care job market is expected to grow about 18 percent in the next four years, more than twice the rate of most occupations.

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