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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

As South Dakota Ages, Who's There to Provide the Care?

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Monday, April 14, 2008   

Vermillion, SD – One in five South Dakotans will be age 65 or older by the year 2025. According to a recent report, it's a demographic trend that could put a strain on the state's healthcare system. The study estimates the population of South Dakotans age 65 and older increased 51 percent between 1960 and 2000. During the same time period, the number of South Dakotans ages 85 and older increased by 297 percent.

Study coauthor De Vee Dykstra says the state's oldest "Baby Boomers" will begin hitting age 65 by the year 2011. She believes it's going to create some serious healthcare issues that the state should address now, rather than later.

"As the population starts to get older, we have a greater need for healthcare, while at the same time reducing the number of individuals that would be the providers of healthcare. People will be retiring out of healthcare occupations just as we have an increasing need for those kinds of services. Another problem is where the particular healthcare providers are geographically located, compared to where the higher need might be."

Coauthor Diane Duin adds the state needs to plan for educating nurses, and making sure some of them go into teaching to prepare the next generation.

"It's about those who have the skills and abilities and education to teach the nurses. We reach capacity pretty quickly and really can't take more people into the profession if we don't have the educators. That was a little bit of an eye-opener, that we hadn't thought too much about until we explored our data."

The report shows there are 221 fewer LPNs in South Dakota now than in 1980, and, 45 fewer full-time and 225 fewer part-time RNs. The article appears in the most recent issue of the South Dakota Business Review.



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