The travel nursing pandemic-bubble – a stop-gap measure meant to ease staffing shortages during the height of Covid-19 – has mostly burst. No longer can traveling healthcare professionals demand triple the rate of staff registered nurses. That astronomical rate was an unavoidable measure hospitals took to stay afloat amid an unprecedented rush of patients.
Still, unions do hold a grudge.
The New York State Nurses Association expressed outrage over the $1.2 billion spent upon temporary healthcare staff, primarily travel nurses, in fiscal 2022 and during increased Covid federal aid dollars. These travel nurses undoubtedly helped to prevent the collapse of healthcare systems.
Yet a union officer believes this money could have been better spent easing understaffing in the long term. This downplays the urgency with which hospitals were forced to react. The staffing issue is much more complicated than unions appear to believe, and mid-pandemic raises would not have solved a problem rooted in a shortage of incoming workers within this industry.
A quick update on the 85 healthcare strikes we recently discussed: This month, a Queens hospital saw 150 residents launch the first strike by NYC doctors in over three decades. And in Texas and Kansas, nurses at three Ascension-owned facilities authorized strikes as contract negotiations continue.
FYI, those Ascension facilities already arranged for contracted nurses to fill the striking gaps. In other words, unions are ironically keeping travel nurses in business.
