[The shortage of nurses: a reversing trend?]

With fewer people becoming nurses, projections of the past years indicated a declining in the size of nursing workforce and forecast a shortage of up to 1 million of nurses. This trend seems revolving as in the US, due to a series of public and private initiatives, the number of applicants for nursing courses more than doubled since 1985. While the number of nurses is increasing, in some European countries, hospitals are facing a severe shortage of nurses, for costs constraints due to the economic crisis and a mismatch between health and NHS priorities and policies.