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Nurses given a year more to pass NCLEX
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Posted on Apr 03 2006
The Commonwealth Board of Nurse Examiners has given local nurses an additional year to pass the National Council Licensure Examination.
The nurse examiners board, at the request of its chairwoman Rosa Tudela, extended the NCLEX passage deadline for CNMI nurses from June 30, 2006 to the same day in 2007. Accordingly, the nurses’ current licenses were also extended.
The board said the order addresses any confusion caused by the transition from the old Nursing Act to the 2005 Nursing Act, particularly with regard to the dates by which nurses and other licensees working under a provisional license must have passed the NCLEX.
According to the board, many nurses working in the CNMI with provisional foreign endorsement licensees issued prior to passage of the 2005 Nurse Practice Act were required to take and pass the NCLEX by June 30, 2006. Others were given until June 30, 2007 to pass the exam.
The board noted that June 30, 2006 is only a few months away. The change in law may have confused some nurses and given them little time to prepare for the deadline.
The agency also pointed out that there were currently no active rules or regulations implementing the 2005 nursing law, which repealed the 2003 act. This aroused doubt about whether the board’s requirements under the old regulations were still applicable.
To eliminate this doubt, the board combined the two deadlines and set June 30, 2007 as the firm date for NCLEX passage. The extension will also give all nurses plenty of time to prepare for, take, and pass the NCLEX.
“Thus, the board declares…all persons subject to the act and who are holders of a license by endorsement or other provisional license requiring passage of NCLEX, shall take and pass the NCLEX by June 30, 2007 and that their licenses and endorsements shall not expire before that date, subject, of course, to other non-NMCLEX provisions of the act,” the order read.
Anyone seeking to appeal the order has 30 days to ask the Superior Court for judicial review.
