At up to $8,000/week, US travel nurses keep COVID-slammed hospitals afloat

Issam Ahmed, Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Alan Glazewski, a traveling nurse from Wisconsin treats a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley California, U.S., February 1, 2022. Shannon Stapleton, Reuters" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2022/tvpatrol/02/15/alan-glazewski.jpg"/><figcaption>Alan Glazewski, a traveling nurse from Wisconsin treats a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley California, U.S., February 1, 2022. <em>Shannon Stapleton, Reuters</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>WASHINGTON, United States - For Allyssa Findorff, the decision to hit the road on short-term nursing contracts was an easy one: she&#x27;d always wanted to see the rest of America, and the attractive rates on offer helped seal the deal.</p><p>A year into the pandemic, with what she felt was enough experience in the ER under her belt, the 32-year-old, her restaurant server boyfriend and their two dogs left their native Wisconsin for her hospital assignments in Florida, followed by Colorado and now Arizona.</p><p>With the Omicron variant pushing the nation&#x27;s health care system to the brink, and staff leaving in droves due to poor conditions and burnout, &quot;travel nurses&quot; are helping plug the gaps -- and sometimes pulling in wages that exceed those of surgeons.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/02/01/22/us-cdc-warns-against-travel-to-philippines-singapore-over-covid-19">US CDC warns against travel to Philippines, Brazil, Singapore over COVID-19</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/01/20/22/omicron-starts-receding-in-the-united-states-data-show">Omicron COVID variant starts receding in the US, data show</a></li></ul><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe __idm_id__="11722755" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1894109" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div><p>&quot;My boyfriend and I kind of agreed to only stay somewhere for four months, even if we love it, just so that we keep moving,&quot; she told AFP, adding the pair wanted to see &quot;each corner of the country&quot; by the time she&#x27;s done.</p><p>Travel nursing isn&#x27;t new, but the sector saw revenue growth of 35 percent in 2020, and was projected to expand a further 40 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to figures by Staffing Industry Analysts.</p><p>Mike Press, a recruiter at staffing agency Judge, told AFP rates were going as high as $8,000 per week, though this was on the higher end.</p><p>Most listings on Facebook groups advertising for jobs currently fall around the $3,000-5,000 per week range, still significantly higher than before the pandemic, when travel nurses typically earned around 15 percent more than those on staff per year.</p><div><strong>A YEAR&#x27;S SALARY IN 3 MONTHS</strong></div><p>Contracts typically last three to four months, during which time travel nurses can make as much as they did in a full year before the pandemic, although some hospitals are now &quot;testing the water with four-to-six week contracts&quot; as the current hospitalization spike is forecast to taper, said Press.</p><p>Stacey Bosak, a 45-year-old from the Philadelphia area, is a single mother-of-four who leapt at the opportunity to start &quot;traveling&quot; as soon as the pandemic hit.</p><p>Elective surgeries were being canceled, staff who worked in non-emergency fields were being laid off -- and besides, Bosak had an instinct for running towards dangerous situations others might flee from -- including during the September 11, 2001 attacks, prior to being a nurse.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/01/13/22/study-sees-shorter-hospital-stay-among-omicron-patients">Reduced hospitalization risk, shorter stays seen in omicron patients, US study shows</a></li></ul><p>&quot;When 9/11 happened, I drove there, and obviously there was nothing to do, and so when this happened, I had all the tools to help,&quot; she told AFP.</p><p>Her first job as a travel nurse came in the spring of 2020 in New York, when the city became the global epicenter of the coronavirus. </p><p>After a stint in Maryland, Bosak is back in her home area on a short contract.</p><p>She says that the situation during this wave &quot;has been hell on Earth.&quot; </p><p>&quot;The hospital is no place for a sick person right now -- it&#x27;s really bad,&quot; she said, with staffing shortages extending to administrators and other types of medical worker.</p><p>Bosak gave the example of a case where she was tending to Covid patients who required high-flow oxygen through a nasal cannula, a technique which has been shown to reduce the need for invasive intubation on a ventilator, which not all patients need.</p><p>But because the hospital didn&#x27;t have enough high-flow machines, the patients had to be intubated, which can lead to worse outcomes.</p><div><strong>CORPORATE GREED</strong></div><p>Hospital systems have accused recruitment agencies of exploiting the pandemic, with industry group American Hospital Association in February 2021 calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate.</p><p>&quot;It shouldn&#x27;t be permitted during a pandemic, just like we don&#x27;t permit building companies to triple the price of lumber after a hurricane,&quot; John Galley, chief human resource officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, told trade magazine Becker&#x27;s Hospital Review recently.</p><p>But according to Edward Smith, executive director of the DC Nurses Association, the nursing crisis existed well before the pandemic. One of the underlying reasons was low nurse-to-patient ratios driving nurses to burnout, caused by the greed of hospitals themselves.</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s not that there&#x27;s not a shortage of available nurses -- there&#x27;s really a shortage of available nurses that will continue to put their license in jeopardy, their lives in jeopardy, and the patient&#x27;s care in jeopardy,&quot; he told AFP.</p><p>Hospital groups have lobbied furiously against state level bills that would legislate against low staffing to patient ratios -- spending $25 million in Massachusetts in 2019 to defeat such an effort.</p><p>Finally, the current windfalls for travel nurses come with certain pitfalls, Colin Bosak, who advises temporary medical staff for the firm 1847Financial, told AFP.</p><p>Most temporary staffing companies don&#x27;t offer benefits like retirement plans -- or, ironically, health insurance.</p><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe __idm_id__="11722754" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1924329" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div>

With the Omicron variant pushing the US health care system to the brink, 'travel nurses' are helping plug the gaps.

At up to $8,000/week, US travel nurses keep COVID-slammed hospitals afloat | ABS-CBN

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At up to $8,000/week, US travel nurses keep COVID-slammed hospitals afloat

At up to $8,000/week, US travel nurses keep COVID-slammed hospitals afloat

Issam Ahmed,

Agence France-Presse

Published Feb 15, 2022 01:37 PM PHT

Read More:

coronavirus

united states

united states covid

travel nurses

covid-19

pandemic

health

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