Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1485806
32 NURSING SPOTLIGHT 3 guarantees travel nurses would need from their hospitals to return By Erica Carbajal and Cailey Gleeson S ome travel nurses who le full-time hospital jobs during the pandemic have no plans to return. But there is a subset of reachable nurses who say they would consider returning to a full-time bedside role if hospitals made certain guarantees. Hospitals heavily relied on travel nurses when the novel coronavirus began spreading in the U.S. Unprecedented demand sent rates soaring, enticing many staff nurses who may have never thought about travel work to take the leap. From January to March 2020, the number of travel nurses doubled from 50,000 to at least 100,000, according to data from Staffing Industry Analysts cited by NBC News. Travel nurse demand is now falling, with data from staffing firm Aya Healthcare showing demand dropped 42 percent from January to July of this year. And with a drop in demand comes falling pay, though travel rates still remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. Becker's heard from several travel nurses who say nothing could make them return to their staff nurse positions, saying the higher pay and scheduling flexibility offered by contract assignments outweigh any changes hospitals could make to lure them back. Others told Becker's they would return to staff nursing, but only if hospitals made several significant commitments to improve compensation, staffing and patient safety. Better pay as a staff nurse Higher pay for full-time nurses would, of course, sway those who le for travel work to come back. But significant gaps between staff nurse pay and temporary contracts remain. Travel nurses in 2021 were earning an average of about $125 an hour, Staffing Industry Analysts told NBC. at's almost three times the hourly rate of a staff nurse, according to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Pamela Esmond, RN, 59, of northern Illinois became a travel nurse during the pandemic. She told NBC News Sept. 3 she plans on working as a travel nurse until she retires at 65 in order to afford retirement. "e reality is they don't pay staff nurses enough, and if they would pay staff nurses enough, we wouldn't have this problem," Ms. Esmond said. "...I would love to go back to staff nursing, but on my staff job, I would never be able to retire." Shauna Painter, RN, ADN, worked at Walmart to pay for nursing school. At a certain point, she said, she realized that she would make more money as a store manager than a "highly trained ICU nurse." "Ultimately, I followed my passion for patient care and chose nursing, but it's simply too hard to make a living as a nurse on regular pay," Ms. Painter told Becker's. Ms. Painter spent more than six years as a staff nurse and made the switch to travel nursing about two and a half years ago when the pandemic began. During her time in the traditional healthcare setting, she said she was living "paycheck to paycheck." "In 2020, my take home pay as a staff nurse was roughly $1,500 every two weeks, which was the same amount as my mortgage," Ms. Painter said. "Most nurses are working overtime so they can simply pay their bills. Nurses with student loans have it even harder." For travel nurses, it's simple: "Hospital systems need to do a better job at valuing a nurse's (and all hospital staff 's) worth and paying them accordingly," Ms. Painter said. "Compensation should match expertise, training and worth." For hospitals, however, the ask is more complex. Health systems have said they couldn't consistently afford to pay full-time staff nurses wages meant for temporary assignments. In January, Pittsburgh-based UPMC's chief human resource officer John Galley told Becker's that Viewpoint: Stop treating nurses like selfless mothers By Mackenzie Bean A dvocating for better working conditions is an especially challenging task for nurses, as they are battling a long history of sexism and false notions about the profession, Stephen Mihm, PhD, wrote in an op- ed published Sept. 16 in Bloomberg. "A century's worth of sentimental blather about nursing as selfless women's work has left Americans ill-equipped to grasp the severity of the current crisis," said Dr. Mihm, a professor of history at the University of Georgia in Athens. The modern nursing profession ties back to the Civil War, when women volunteered to care for wounded soldiers, he said. In the decades after, formal nurse training schools gained prominence, and few — if any — admitted men. Typically, female nursing students spent two to three years training on the job in hospitals and lived in dormitories that were run like convents. After graduation, few went into hospital nursing, as most of the work was done by students — who were unpaid, according to Dr. Mihm. "This arrangement helped cement a public perception that nursing was less a conventional job and career than a selfless endeavor akin to motherhood," he wrote. Now, amid prevalent staffing shortages, nurses strikes are gaining traction nationwide. Nurses are not just fighting for better working conditions and pay, but also public support, according to Dr. Mihm. "The history can help us understand why, unlike workers at Amazon.com or Starbucks Corp., nurses must confront decades of sexist attitudes that have condemned them for being anything other than tireless, self-sacrificing caregivers," he said. n