Front line pay rises with COVID

Hospitals offer incentives for extra shifts, hire costly traveling nurses

Are hospitals willing to pay nurses more to work during the COVID-19 crisis?

They might not have a choice if the number of hospitalizations continues to rise.

“They are stretched to the limit,” said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff at a briefing Wednesday. “We think we have maybe two more weeks of this, but it’s not sustainable.”

While San Antonio hospital officials would not discuss specific job offers or pay rates, nearly all hospitals have started to offer incentive pay for nurses willing to work extra shifts during the coronavirus crisis.

Methodist Healthcare System officials said they are trying to recruit an additional 200 experienced nurses to boost its workforce. Others hospital systems are cross-training workers and redeploying them from other departments throughout the hospital. Some hospitals are bringing in traveling nurses to meet staffing demands.

Nurses have been in short supply in Texas for years. Data from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration shows a statewide shortage of nearly 16,000 nurses by 2030.

The United States has nearly 4 million licensed registered nurses, 82 percent of whom work in health care facilities, according to the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis.

As of Wednesday, more than 75 percent of staffed hospital beds in Bexar County were filled with COVID-19 patients.

Metro Health reports more than 12,000 positive cases, re