By ANGELA RUCKER
Courier-Post Staff

A nursing shortage is not the only employee problem vexing hospitals and other health providers. They say they also go wanting for the workers who fill prescriptions, ensure bills are accurate and manipulate out-of-whack bodies into shape.

The American Hospital Association calls the growing shortage of health workers not just nurses a problem "of the utmost concern."

"This issue cuts to the core of every hospital," AHA President Dick Davidson said in a statement earlier this year.

Here in New Jersey, the problems are just as serious, some hospital administrators said.

Ron Czajkowski, spokesman for the New Jersey Hospital Association, said the latest survey of New Jersey hospitals found a 13 percent vacancy rate for nurses, 9 percent for pharmacists, 18 percent for billers/coders, 22 percent for physical therapists and 27 percent for occupational therapists.

"Today, it's nursing because it's such a big group," said Richard E. Murray, president and chief executive officer with Kennedy Health System and chairman of the hospital association.

But the cries of shortages are likely to reach other medical professions if nothing happens to shore up their ranks as well, he said.

He said the shortages in other professions are "further frustrating the floor nurses" at Kennedy's hospitals in Cherry Hill, Stratford and Washington Township.

While openings for nurses comprise three-quarters of all hospital vacancies nationwide, vacancy rates are also high for pharmacists (21 percent), radiological technologists (18 percent), billing/coders (18 percent), laboratory technologists (12 percent), and housekeeping/maintenance (9 percent).

According to the New Jersey Department of Labor's employment statistics, there are 2,018 open positions for registered nurses in the state, 716 openings for licensed practical nurses and 1,662 for nursing assistants.

Employers are also seeking 153 medical technologists and technicians, 397 radiological technologists and technicians, 271 physical therapists and 196 pharmacists, the statistics show.

"Health care is really in desperate need," said Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center CEO Leslie D. Hirsch.