Hospitals run low on nurses as they get swamped with COVID
The rapidly escalating surge in COVID-19 infections across the U.S. has caused a shortage of nurses and other front-line staff in virus hotspots that can no longer keep up with the flood of unvaccinated patients and are losing workers to burnout and lucrative out-of-state temporary gigs.
Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana all have more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than any other point in the pandemic, and nursing staff is being stretched thin.
In Florida, COVID-19 cases have filled so many hospital beds that ambulance services and fire departments are straining to respond to emergencies. Some patients wait inside ambulances for up to an hour before hospitals in St. Petersburg, Florida, can admit them — a process that usually takes about 15 minutes, Pinellas County Administrator Barry Burton said.
One person who suffered a heart attack was bounced from six hospitals before finding an emergency room in New Orleans that could take him in, said Joe Kanter, Louisiana’s chief public health officer.
“It’s a real dire situation,” Kanter said. “There’s just not enough qualified staff in the state right now to care for all these patients.”
Miami’s Jackson Memorial Health System, Florida’s largest medical provider, has been losing nurses to staffing agencies, other hospitals and pandemic burnout, executive vice president Julie Staub said. The hospital's CEO says nurses are being lured away to jobs in other states at double and triple the salary.
Staub said its hospitals have started paying retention bonuses to nurses who agree to stay with the system for a set period. To cover shortages, nurses who agree to work extra are getting the typical time-and-a-half for overtime plus $500 per additional 12-hour shift. Even with that, the hospital still has to sometimes turn to...
