The Senate Health and Human Services Committee passed a bill that changes the nurses’ education loan assistance program to a scholarship program. Gloria Damgaard is the Executive Director of the South Dakota Board of Nursing. She says the change decreases the amount of red tape to process and receive the assistance.
“We are not getting the number of applicants for the program that we used to,” Damgaard says. “In fact the LPN students hardly apply at all for the program. And we believe it’s these intensive loan requirements that are deterring these applicants from applying. So we would really like to simplify it and be able to give the scholarships to the students, and we wouldn’t have nearly the administrative costs if we do that.”
Senate Bill 30 also cleans up some language and provides the definition for an advance practice registered nurse. The committee passed the bill unanimously and placed it on the consent calendar.