Travel nurses have been in high demand as hospitals across the country deal with surge after surge of COVID-19 and struggle with staffing shortages, but some nurses say the current healthcare system is unsustainable.
Hospitals are trying to deal with staff shortages by offering high-paying contracts to travel nurses. Travel nurses are making more money than doctors.
"The hospital that I'm working in right now was so short staffed and so critically overwhelmed that I am making more money than the surgeons," said Tayler Oakes, a travel nurse.
Oakes said the system is unsustainable. She told Insider that she's burnt out and the only thing keeping her in her role is her pay.
She said that the money is keeping a lot of people in the industry and that it's not sustainable.
The compensation has made some nurses leave their jobs to work in the travel nurse industry, according to a travel nurse in South Carolina. The lack of adequate pay for staff nurses, along with working conditions, led to a mass exodus of staff nurses who took on more lucrative travel positions.
The constant rise of COVID-19 cases has made some of the issues afflicting the industry worse, according to Oakes.
She said that she doesn't know how long a body can sustain the work that nurses do at the bedside. How long can your emotional and mental health last if you see people die from preventable things?
She said that people don't understand what healthcare workers see. Imagine seeing people die all day and you're supposed to clock out and go to dinner.
As officials warn of an increase in hospitalizations due to the Omicron variant spread across the country, nurses feel like they're living in aGroundhog Day movie.
Many people thought that with the introduction of vaccines last year that cases would decline and the strain on the healthcare system would diminish, but they have instead found themselves in a loop.
Many nurses are considering leaving the profession because of the Pandemic. A survey done in March of over 1,000 travel nurses found that most didn't think the healthcare system prioritized mental health and well-being.
Almost half of the people who said they felt less committed to nursing said they were considering leaving the profession, and 25% said they were looking for a job outside of nursing.
The travel nurse told Insider that she has more work on her plate with less nurses available and more demand for them. She said she would often have to help out other nurses who have just graduated or are not specifically trained to treat COVID-19 patients.
She said that adds to the mental and physical exhaustion she feels. She told Insider that she was considering leaving the bedside care because of the stress.
"I think that healthcare systems need to realize that nurses are valuable and that they're an important part of healthcare systems and they wouldn't run without them," she said.
