“On Travel Nursing During the Pandemic” OR “Why Aren’t You a Traveler Yet?”

              If you are a nurse, or really if you work in a hospital at all, then you are probably aware of the so-called nursing shortage. While it is true that there is an impending shortage of nurses due to the demographics of the country (baby boomers retiring and requiring healthcare and too few nurses to replace them), I don’t think that is what is happening right now. What is happening right now is a direct result of the pandemic and hospitals’ collective ability to undervalue and mismanage nurses.

              I have been an ER nurse for about ten years now. It has been a pretty steady gig for the most part. Staff turnover has always been about what you would expect. Older nurses would retire occasionally, newer nurses would take their places, and there was plenty of experience left amongst the remaining staff to adequately train the newer nurses. People occasionally leave for other reasons as well, but I had not experienced a mass exodus of experienced nurses both young and old until the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-pandemic we had 25 full and part-time RNs. It looks like 2-3 more RNs were needed to fill out the schedule at that time. 16 of those 25 have left since the pandemic began. A few to retirement, but the vast majority left because they were tired of being treated like dirt by the hospital. They didn’t all leave at once either, it was more of a trickle as people got more and more tired of constantly dealing with COVID patients with no support from the hospital. In the early days of the pandemic we were reusing N95 masks. People literally wore garbage bags at times due to lack of isolation gowns. Anyway, you have probably heard all about how crappy the beginning of the pandemic was, so I won’t rehash that part of it.

              The main point I am trying to make is that hospital administrations have long treated nurses as nothing more than expenses to be minimized on a balance sheet. At least that is the impression that is given to working nurses. Granted, administrators do a lot of work to keep hospitals running that is unseen and unappreciated by frontline staff. However, they tend to do a terrible job of displaying any appreciation for employees whatsoever and it has only gotten worse during the pandemic. Some of the problems of the pandemic were outside of the administration’s control. Particularly the need to cancel surgeries and the dramatic drop in patient volume. While my administrative experience is very limited, it is no secret that surgery is one of, if not the top moneymaking service lines for hospitals. Hospitals’ bottom lines probably took a major hit, at least during the early part of the pandemic (I say “probably” because I am writing off the cuff and I’m too lazy to go look for references right now).

              This is what I can tell you is true from experience, at least at my hospital. 16/25 full and part-time RNs left the emergency department between the start of the pandemic and now. It became clear early on that people would continue to leave. Rather than offer any sort of incentive to stay (pizza and platitudes don’t count), they hospital hired more and more travelers on temporary contracts. This would make sense as a temporary measure as you work to retain your remaining staff and recruit more permanent staff. To this day the department is probably at least 50% travel RNs. The existing staff members have received next to nothing. No retention bonuses, no hazard pay. They have been offered decent wages for picking up certain shifts as long as they work all their regular shifts at straight pay. Meanwhile, travel nurses are getting paid ridiculous wages. My current hourly rate is a bit above $40/hr. That is after an additional $1/hr for both my bachelor’s degree and my emergency nursing certification. I can look at a popular travel nursing website and see contracts for my very facility where nurses are being offered $115/hr. I wouldn’t have to travel too far away to get around $140/hr.

              The insane wages that the hospital is willing to shell out for travel nurses for such an extended period of time (over a year now) directly refutes the argument that they can’t afford to pay their nurses more. Sure, travel nurses don’t get benefits, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the cost of benefits for employees averages around $12/hr (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf). It stands to reason then, that if the hospital can sustainably pay $115/hr to travel nurses, then they should have no problem offering their employees retention bonuses or even a wage increase of $20-30/hr. It sure seems like they would have no problem hiring or retaining nurses if they are paying them 50% more than all the other hospitals in the area.

              Here are couple other kickers. 1) They are offering $20,000 sign-on bonuses for nurses with at least 3 years of experience while continuing to let their existing staff members leave (most of whom are leaving for travel nursing jobs). 2) A large percentage of the current travel RNs being employed left their permanent positions at a hospital across town THAT IS OWNED BY THE SAME COMPANY to come “travel” to this hospital for 4x the pay.

              Alas, I can’t imagine that the current travel nursing wages are part of any kind of a sustainable business model. I don’t know what the endgame is for these hospitals. What I do know is that if your life affords you the ability to travel for a 13 week contract, then you should absolutely do it. Like, you should do it right now. I don’t know how long the insane wages will last before the entire healthcare system comes crashing down. But if hospitals are going to be this short-sighted, then we should absolutely take them up on their offers for >$100/hr wages as long as we can.