By Dave Thompson
Bismarck, ND – This month -- North Dakota will start accepting applications for two new financial aid packages for health care workers.
One is a new loan repayment program for dentists.
The 2001 Legislature authorized the program -- because of a growing shortage of dentists, especially in Rural North Dakota. The program allows up to three dental students to receive 80-thousand dollars to help them repay their student loans. In return, the dentist must set up practice for four years in a selected community. Joe Cichy is the executove director of the North Dakota Dental Association. He says once a dentist sets up practice in a community, it's hard to leave.
"To set up one chair in an office is $50,000. So they're going to have a major financial commitment that they've entered into to set up a practice. And we think once they get their practice going, and rolling, they won't leave. And history has shown that very few of them leave after they've established a practice."
Cichy says while the number of dental schools around the country is decreasing, North Dakotans still have opportunities to attend such schools as the University of Minnesota and Creighton University in Omaha, thanks to some reciprocity agreements.
Meanwhile, a new state aid program for nurses who work in nursing homes will soon be accepting its first applications.
Under the program, each of North Dakota's nursing homes will be getting up to 55-hundred dollars in state money. They have to match the money with grants of their own. And the homes can use the money to offer educational incentives, such as loans or grants, to students interested in getting into nursing -- or to help train existing staff.
Shelly Peterson of the North Dakota Long Term Care Association says the nursing homes are facing a critical shortage of nurses.
Peterson says this -- combined with a program that raised nursing home pay -- should help attract and retain nurses and other staffers.