LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Grant money is now being expanded to help address workforce shortages and healthcare access issues at three southern Nevada hospitals.

In 2021, the Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation (GOWINN) received $2.5 million dollars from the U.S. Dept. of Labor for the H-1B Rural Healthcare Grant to alleviate staffing issues in rural Nevada through employment and training programs. The H-1B grant serves underemployed, underserved, and unemployed individuals looking to move into the healthcare field.

So far, the executive director of GOWINN said that grant money has helped in the northern part of the state. Now, that money will help Southern Nevada, too. GOWINN recently got approval from the U.S. Dept. of Labor to expand the H-1B Grant to include rural Southern Nevada. That means the money will now also help Mesa View Hospital in Mesquite, Desert View Hospital in Pahrump, and Boulder City Hospital in Boulder City.

With the grant money, GOWINN partners with Nevadaworks and the Nevada Hospital Association to invest in career training programs in the healthcare sector.

“This grant provides access to on-the-job training, career coaching and job search assistance, occupational skills training, resume writing, interview skills, and for really important critical positions that we often have a hard time filling across the state, and that’s also in our urban communities: registered nurses, radiology technologists, medical assistants, pharmacy technicians,” GOWINN executive director Lisa Levine said. 

Over the last two years, this grant has provided workforce development services to Carson City, Churchill, Douglas, Elko, Humboldt, Lander, Lincoln, Lyon, Mineral, Pershing, and White Pine counties. 

“We saw that during the pandemic, there were often workforce shortages in rural parts of the state in the healthcare spaces and that would lead to some type of closure or kind of shrinking, if you will, of the resources that were being provided to community members. It’s important to remember, oftentimes, when you look at who is residing in one of our rural communities, they’re veterans, they’re military members, they’re military spouses, so providing this access for us also is a way to help our underserved community members,” Levine said.