Governor Gregg Abbott Relaxes Nursing Regulations Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News) – Texas Governor Gregg Abbott issued two executive orders today, both aimed at helping to maximize bed capacity and staff capacity for COVID-19 patients at Texas hospitals.

First, Abbott is directed all licensed health care professionals and all licensed health care facilities to postpone all surgeries and procedures that are not medically necessary to correct a serious medical condition or to preserve the life of a patient. Second, the Governor is suspending certain regulations to increase the capacity of hospital rooms that are available. Meaning, hospitals will be able to treat more than one patient in a patient room, thus increasing their ability to care for the growing potential number of COVID-19 patients.

According to Abbott, the number of people in Texas who are tested for COVID-19, and the number of people who are testing positive for COVID-19 are both expected to increase. “More testing centers and the ability to conduct more tests would also increase”, said Abbott. But for now the Governor saying “we are testing to the full extent of testing capabilities at this time. The reason for the increase in testing capabilities is because we have received more testing capabilities from the federal government. The inability to test has nothing to do with regard to lack of resources, at least monetary resources. We have all the monetary resources that we need in order to administer all the tests that we would be capable of administering. The problem is lack of availability of those testing resources. The federal government is aware of both our demand as well as the inadequate supply and they are working aggressively to ramp up the supplies they are providing.”

The Governor also vowing to put more medical staff in place. “To increase the number of available nurses, I have waived regulations to address potential shortages of nurses. This will allow temporary permit extensions to practice for graduate nurses and graduate vocational nurses who have yet to take the nursing licensing exam. It will allow nurses with inactive licenses or retired nurses to reactivate their licenses. It allows students in their final year of nursing school to meet their clinical objectives by exceeding the 50 percent limit on simulated experiences. And it fasts tracks permits for out of state medical professionals, said Abbott.”