Hospitals scrambling for staff
States try to lure retired doctors, nurses; nearly 100K hospitalized
OMAHA, Neb. — U.S. hospitals slammed with COVID-19 patients are trying to lure nurses and doctors out of retirement, recruiting students and new graduates who have yet to earn their licenses and offering eye-popping salaries to ease staffing shortages.
With the virus surging from coast to coast, the number of patients in the hospital with the virus has more than doubled over the past month to a record high of nearly 100,000, pushing medical centers and health care workers to the breaking point.
“Nurses are under immense pressure right now,” said Kendra Mcmillan, a senior policy adviser for the American Nurses Association. “We’ve heard from nurses on the front lines who say they’ve never experienced the level of burnout we’re seeing right now.”
Governors in hard-hit states like Wisconsin and Nebraska are making it easier for retired nurses to come back, including by waiving licensing requirements and fees, though it can be a tough sell for older nurses, who would be in more danger than many of their colleagues if they contracted the virus.
Some are taking jobs that don’t involve working directly with patients to free up front-line nurses, Mcmillan said.
Iowa is allowing temporary, emergency licenses for new nurses who have met the state’s educational requirements but haven’t yet taken the state licensing exam. Some Minnesota hospitals are offering winter internships to nursing students to boost their staffs.
Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis will place 25 interns for one to two months to work with COVID-19 patients, though certain tasks will remain off-limits, such as inserting IVS or urinary catheters, said Tina Kvalheim, a nurse who runs the program.
Hospitals also are turning to nurses who travel from state to state. But that’s expensive because hospitals around the country are competing for them, driving salaries as high as $6,200 per week.
April Hansen, executive vice president at San Diego-based Aya Healthcare, said there are now 31,000 openings for travel nurses, more than twice the number being sought when the pandemic surged in the spring.
“It is crazy,” Hansen said. “It doesn’t matter if you are rural or urban, if you are an Indian health facility or an academic medical center or anything in between. … All facilities are experiencing increased demand right now.”
Doctors are in demand, too.
“I don’t even practice anymore, and I’ve gotten lots of emails asking me to travel across the country to work in ERS,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.