US hospitals hit with nurse staffing crisis amid COVID
The problem, health leaders say, is twofold: Nurses are quitting or retiring, exhausted or demoralized by the crisis. And many are leaving for lucrative temporary jobs with traveling- agencies that can pay $5,000 or more a week.

It's gotten to the point where doctors are saying, "Maybe I should quit being a doctor and go be a nurse," said Dr. Phillip Coule, chief medical officer at Georgia's Augusta University Medical Center, which has on occasion seen 20 to 30 resignations in a week from nurses taking traveling jobs.
"And then we have to pay premium rates to get staff from another state to come to our state," Coule said.

The average pay for a traveling nurse has soared from roughly $1,000 to $2,000 per week before the pandemic to $3,000 to $5,000 now, said Sophia Morris, a at San Diego-based health care staffing firm Aya Healthcare. She said Aya has 48,000 openings for traveling nurses to fill.

At competitor SimpliFi, President James Quick said the hospitals his company works with are seeing unprecedented levels of vacancies.

In this July 16, 2021, file photo, a nurse sticks her head out of a room of a COVID-19 patient in the CoxHealth Emergency Department in Springfield, Mo. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a nurse staffing crisis that is forcing many U.S. hospitals to pay top dollar to get the help they need to handle the crush of patients this summer. Credit: Nathan Papes/The Springfield News-Leader via AP
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In this Aug. 18, 2021, file photo, a poster honoring medical and frontline workers, hangs on a nursing station of an intensive care unit, at the Willis-Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, La. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a nurse staffing crisis that is forcing many U.S. hospitals to pay top dollar to get the help they need to handle the crush of patients this summer. Credit: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File
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In this Aug. 17, 2021, file photo, an ICU nurse, moves electrical cords for medical machines, outside the room of a patient suffering from COVID-19, in an intensive care unit at the Willis-Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, La. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a nurse staffing crisis that is forcing many U.S. hospitals to pay top dollar to get the help they need to handle the crush of patients this summer. Credit: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File
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