New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez outlined a number of health care workforce expansion proposals on Monday that were recently approved by the state legislature.
“I’m very proud that, in a bipartisan way, we passed numerous initiatives designed to create health care jobs of all types throughout New Mexico,” Martinez said. “With these changes, we establish ourselves as a national leader in responding to the new demands imposed by recent health care changes, and we better position ourselves to provide high-quality primary care services to New Mexico families.”
One measure allocates $500,000 to create a statewide voluntary community health worker training and certification program, which will aim to use community health workers to administer preventative care.
Proposals to expand residency and nurse practitioner positions at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine that were outlined in Martinez’s state budget were also approved by legislators.
The residency expansion program, which will receive $905,000 in funding, will focus on internal medicine, psychiatry, general surgery and family and community medicine. Expansion of the nurse practitioner program will add 24 students to the program per year at a cost of $1.655 million.
Other measures included are designed to train more dentists and expand loan-for-service programs and loan repayment efforts to create more nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors and other health care professionals.
“How we respond to challenges is what sets us apart from the rest,” Martinez said. “By investing in efforts such as these, we can better build a health care workforce capable of ensuring the high-quality care New Mexico’s families deserve – creating new jobs in a critical sector of our economy in the process.”