RACINE â As a youngster, Larry Bannister was one of about 28,000 Americans who contracted polio in 1951.
Like about 95% of children at the time who caught fell ill with the poliovirus, Bannister survived; the fatality rate for adults was about five times higher.
Bannisterâs body still carries the effects of fighting the virus. He usually walks with crutches. If he goes shopping or knows he needs to be more mobile, he uses a wheelchair.
âSomebody asked me one time âWhy didnât your parents get you vaccinated?â I had polio in â51. The vaccine came out in â56. I didnât have an option,â said Bannister, who is retired and living in Racine.
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According to Administrators of Nursing Education in Wisconsin, âIn 2018, Wisconsin nursing schools turned away over 1,000 students who wanted to enter the nursing profession or advance their education and improve their clinical skills.â Those rejections exacerbate the problem of how the Department of Workforce Development predicts that in 2025 Wisconsin will have a shortage of between 2,300 and 6,300 nurses.
Fixing that âbottleneckâ of too few educators is then critical to addressing the Silver Tsunami, ANEW argues.
Beyond that, educators say that Wisconsin needs to train the next generation of medical professionals to better serve the needs of the future than to continue with the status quo â that is, to train young nurses and doctors to work outside of hospital settings than in them.
Gateway Technical College s EcoFest and Earth Day event set for Saturday; virtual and live activities journaltimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from journaltimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
There are a number of proposed courses of action for the âSilver Tsunami,â the expected surge from an aging U.S. population that will likely strain the U.S. health care system in a way similar to the COVID-19 pandemic but over a longer period of time.
The âWisconsin 2020 Health Care Workforce Reportâ from the Wisconsin Hospitals Association says that solutions include creating a healthier population by curbing obesity to lower the need for hospital visits. There are also racial disparities that have left communities of color, especially in Wisconsin, with longstanding barriers to quality health care as well as more challenges for young people to enter the medical fields.
COVID-19 might ve been only a preview of Wisconsin s impending Silver Tsunami of aging patients | Local News journaltimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from journaltimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.