Bangor hospital program aims to fill nurse shortage

Photo / Courtesy Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center Corinth resident Bridget Squires, a registered nurse at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, was the first person to graduate from the hospital’s RN Sponsorship Program.

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By Renee Cordes

As Maine faces an estimated workforce shortage of 3,200 nurses by 2025, employers have had to get creative in attracting people to the profession.

One example is Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center’s new RN Sponsorship Program, in which participants attend classes while receiving full-time pay and benefits, support from a mentor and two years of tuition payments.

In return for those benefits, participants are asked to make a commitment to work for the Bangor hospital for five years after graduating in any role that requires a nursing license.

“It’s challenging to fill the talent pipeline, but the program has benefits beyond just getting someone in the door,” says Ali Worster, vice president for human resources at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center. “We’re getting somebody in the door who already knows their way around and who is already part of who we are.”

Bridget Squires was the first person to graduate from the program this year.

A stay-at-home mom for many years with a bachelor’s degree in health care management but no direct path to a job without a nursing background, she enrolled in a program at Bangor’s Beal College in 2018.

When she ran out of funds to pay for her schooling, Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center came to her with word of its new scholarship program and encouraged her to apply. She did, and hasn’t looked back since.

“The program did more than just pay for my schooling, it paid me 40 hours a week for my family,” she says. “It lays the groundwork for you to succeed not only in school, but at the hospital once you graduate.”

Appreciative of the opportunity to ask questions of mentors and other nurses along the way, Squires says that “is going to make you a better nurse when you graduate because you have all that knowledge already.”

Now working as a supplemental staffing department registered nurse, she gets around to all the floors. Based on her experience so far, she has this advice for others with an interest in the profession: “If you’re on the fence, just take the leap because you are capable of so much more than you think.”

Worster says that another 10 people started the program this month, and does not know of a similar one anywhere else that pays for school time.

While the program focuses on community residents, the hospital also recruits job candidates from out of state and even internationally, and Worster says it’s important to have a workforce that’s as diverse as its patients.

“Our patients are very diverse socially and economically, so having a workforce able to reflect that provides a level of care that’s above and beyond,” she says.