Jean Moreno is a foot soldier in the battle for nurses in the growing war known as the nursing shortage.

Moreno is a recruiter from St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Il., and she has been in the war zone at 12 job fairs since last September.

“We attend all the different fairs just to keep our name out,” Moreno said, shuffling pamphlets at her station amid rows of recruiting booths at the Nursing Careers Day Monday. “There is light at the end of the tunnel” for nurses and future nurses “depending on where they want to go. The field has so many options right now,” she said.

The nursing shortage is reflected in the declining number of NIU nursing students: 532 in 1985 and 430 in 1989. The shortage is the result of years of low salary and status, Moreno said.

NIU nursing student Melanie Furst attibutes the shortage to the “AIDS scare” and low nursing salaries.

Mary Ellen Jankowski, recruiter from North Shore Medical Center in Chicago, said long hours, burnout and stress have also attributed to the shortage. “There aren’t enough nurses coming out of nursing schools to fill the positions.”

Five percent of the nursing positions at her hospital are vacant and the number is increasing, Jankowski said.

The number of seriously ill patients needing nurses also is increasing, compounding the problem, Jankowski said. “It used to be that one nurse could take care of five patients very easily,” that has changed, she said.

Marilyn Wetsel, a recruiter from Swedish American Hospital in Rockford, said her hospital is just now feeling the pinch of the nursing shortage. She said she tries to get 10 potential employees at each of the fairs.

Wetsel blames the shortage on the population curve. “Now there are less kids going to school,” following the baby boom generation “and there are less people going into nursing,” she said.

NIU nursing graduate Andrea Clay, also from Swedish American Hospital, said part of the problem is that nursing has been seen as a woman-oriented profession and women are now pursuing careers in areas that were male dominated.

“We need to work on the image of nursing,” to attract more people, Wetsel said.

The answer to the shortage problems is support, Jankowski said. “I think nursing graduates need a lot of support when they come out of school,” when some have a “reality shock,” Jankowski said. Also, students and potential students need to evaluate why they are going into nursing, she said.

A desire to care for people and not to make money should be the motivation to go into nursing, she said.

Some nursing schools also need to make their curriculums more relevant to actual nursing, Jankowski said.

Money is a central issue in the war for personnel, and increases in wages are here and on their way, Jankowski said. Higher salaries of up to $70,000 on East and West Coast hospitals affect salaries in the midwest, she said.

Furst said job fairs will not influence her future work decisions. “When it comes down to it, I’m going to pick a hospital that best allows me to work in the special field of my choice.”

However, she said she likes to go to job fairs to see what hospitals have openings and what they offer as benefits and money to new graduates.