The nationwide shortage of nurses has been made worse by the stress of treating severely ill COVID-19 patients for over a year, prompting many nurses to seek flexible, higher-paid positions through staffing agencies.
“There are so many other opportunities that exist for nurses that are outside of a very grueling and demanding 24/7 hospital environment,” said Florida Hospital Association President Mary Mayhew. “On top of that, we have lost nurses to staffing agencies where these nurses are traveling around the country at substantially higher compensation.”
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The demand for travel nurses skyrocketed last year at the onset of the pandemic in the United States when hospitals, unprepared for the magnitude of the coming crisis, struggled to keep up with the number of admitted patients. Hospitals are estimated to have lost about 30% of their nursing staff to more lucrative travel jobs, according to Brian Hudson, senior vice president at the staffing agency Avant Healthcare.
Several states have entered a new phase of the pandemic that has mostly affected vaccine holdouts. While breakthrough cases in people who have received the shots are possible, the vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious infections. Now, hospitals in areas of the U.S. with low concentrations of vaccinated people are nearing capacity. In Missouri, nearly 85% of inpatient hospitals beds are filled, and 14% of those beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
In Florida, where more than a quarter of inpatient beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, coronavirus-related hospitalizations exceeded previous records last week, with more than 14,200 patients being treated at once, compared to the previous high of about 11,900 patients in mid-July 2020.
“I have hospitals that are extremely close to their max-surge capacity. They brought beds into cafeterias, to conference rooms, but you’ve got to be able to staff,” Mayhew said. “We have incredibly high patient volumes now, of both COVID patients and non-COVID patients, that is requiring a level of staffing that is just compounding an already challenged workforce capacity.”
Most hospitalizations due to the delta strain of the coronavirus are seen in younger patients 18-49 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the agency does not specify how many of those patients are unvaccinated, the FHA estimates it’s between 88%-90%.
The number of unvaccinated patients in hospitals with COVID-19 is “frustrating” and “infuriating,” according to Alix Zacharski, a clinical care nurse manager at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
“Now we’re turning back to what we had with rapidly increasing numbers [of new cases and hospitalizations]. That made it difficult to stay in the profession … So, a lot of our nurses are sort of reevaluating the profession, especially if they are young and have young families,” Zacharski said.
Vaccination coverage in younger people 12-25 years old is particularly low, causing a demographic shift in patients seeking treatment for severe illness due to COVID-19. Most seniors, considered to be the most vulnerable to the disease, have now been vaccinated. More than 90% have gotten at least one dose of a vaccine, while nearly 81% have been fully vaccinated.
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Hospitals have begun implementing steep sign-on bonuses and pay raises to draw in more nurses. For instance, Piedmont Healthcare in Georgia is offering new nurses a $30,000 bonus in exchange for a two-year commitment at one of the system’s 11 hospitals. Meanwhile, Texas will contract with nurses from out-of-state staffing agencies to help overwhelmed hospitals deal with growing COVID-19 patient loads.
