SCRANTON, Pa. — The announcement was met with applause: $1.5 million is on the way to boost the number of nurses in Lackawanna, Luzerne and Wyoming Counties.
"It's an important time, and health care is more needed than ever now," said Jim Clemente of The Northeastern Pennsylvania Health Care Foundation.
The money is coming from the Northeastern Pennsylvania Health Care Foundation, along with the Scranton Area Community Foundation.
Over the next three years, grants will be doled out; $500,000 each year to recruit, educate, and train new nurses in an area that has a serious shortage.
"We're feeling it. At the moment, we have two openings, and it extends beyond nurses to medical assistants and other support personnel," said Joseph Hollander of Scranton Primary Health Care Center.
This news comes as the nation and the world deal with the outbreak of the coronavirus.
"We're trying to be very proactive, and so we thought about this as a need about a year and a half ago and wanted to explore how we can make an impact and obviously in light of the current challenges in the health care system, it just makes sense, and it shows to me in a sense of almost validation for the need," said Laura Ducceschi of Scranton Area Community Foundation.
The money will be given as grants to different groups and programs from schools to health care providers to nonprofits.