Manpower planning, fiscal restraint, and the "demand" for health care personnel.

During 1979 and 1980, widely circulated newspaper stories in British Columbia reported nurse shortages in the province and warned of dire consequences from what was perceived to be a worsening situation. Because the reports were unsupported by empirical evidence, we undertook to directly monitor net requirements for health care personnel in the province. Focusing on difficult-to-fill positions, we found that geographic location and size of facility figured prominently in the distribution of vacancies, but that public-sector cost containment policies had a dominant impact in reducing vacancies in the health care sector. Health manpower planning may thus depend as much on predicting the size and disposition of the revenue base as on quantifying the perceived need for health care services.