Avant Healthcare Professionals Endorses Bipartisan Legislation to Enhance U.S. Healthcare Workforce

May 05, 2020

ORLANDO, Fla. (May 5, 2020) — Avant Healthcare Professionals today announced endorsement of the bipartisan Senate bill called the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act to support the healthcare workforce in response to COVID-19.

Senators David Perdue (R-GA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Todd Young (R-IN) and Chris Coons (D-DE) announced that they will introduce the bipartisan legislation to provide a temporary stopgap to quickly address our nation’s shortage of doctors and nurses, which poses a significant risk to our ability to effectively respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

“Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. was projected to suffer a shortfall of 200,000 nurses. Now, with healthcare workers representing as much as 20 percent of all new infections across the country, clinician staffing has become a public health crisis of its own,” said Shari Costantini, founder and CEO of Avant Healthcare Professionals, and president of the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment (AAIHR). “This is a thoughtful, targeted solution that puts America on a war footing with the coronavirus by ensuring our hospitals have the front-line clinicians we need to treat historic levels of critical care patients at hospitals all across the country.”

The senators’ proposal, to be introduced when the Senate reconvenes, would recapture 25,000 unused immigrant visas for nurses and 15,000 unused immigrant visas for doctors that Congress has previously authorized and allocate those visas to doctors and nurses who can help in the fight against COVID-19. The proposal will not increase current immigration numbers.

Read the full bill here.