Dec 20, 2021
Travel Nurses Aren’t Overpaid
We all deserve more.
Traveling nurses work as contractors for hospitals. As it has been reported recently in the news, they make more money than those nurses who work directly for hospitals. This angers some people.
It’s only reasonable that full-time staff nurses aren’t happy about working next to temporary nurses who perform the same duties and make thousands more than them. This situation also angers some hospitals and hospital associations who must pay more money for nurses who used to cost much less. You may have even seen that some lawmakers are discussing a pay cap for travel nurses, claiming that the agencies are price gouging and creating a bidding war in a time of crisis.
How we got here
Hospitals have always utilized travel nurses to supplement their staffing needs; for example, during winter surges, to fill in while someone is going on maternity leave, or for a sudden unexpected loss of a few nurses. However, travel nurses now make up most of some entire departments. I have personally worked in more than a few departments where the only staff nurses were the supervisors–the rest of the unit was staffed by travelers.
Well, the way we got to this situation is simple. For a long time, nurses were considered expendable, replaceable, and inexpensive. There was not much of an incentive for multi-billion-dollar healthcare corporations to change anything. They didn’t have to increase pay with inflation, they didn’t have to provide great benefits, and they didn’t have to worry if some people quit. After all, there was always an endless supply of nurses, and if the nurses didn’t like it, they could always just quit and find an equally mediocre job elsewhere.
Until COVID. Suddenly, pre-existing staffing shortages were exacerbated with a huge influx of patients. This prevented hospitals from running efficiently. Suddenly, hospitals around the country needed a lot more nurses. Well, just like anything: supply and demand dictated an increase in wages for the travel nurses. During the height of COVID, there were a lot of contracts that paid nurses more than doctors.
This was a life-changing amount of money for a lot of us. People paid off debts, they purchased homes, and they treated themselves to luxury items. Sure, it was a lot of hard work–there was a lot of death, and honestly, being around COVID without enough PPE was scary and dangerous. But for a lot of us, it was worth the risk.
Where do we go from here?
Ok, so hospitals think that this model is not sustainable. They think it is costing them too much money. However, nobody is talking about capping the pay of physicians. Or CEOs. Or any other profession. Truck drivers are paid more than other people with similar experience and training because of supply and demand.
The reality is that nurses have knowledge and skills which are in demand. A good nurse can quite literally mean the difference between life and death for patients. While a doctor might spend 15 minutes per day with a patient, the nurses spend hours, and are the ones executing complicated orders and are monitoring for problems. The nurses are the ones who provide direct care for patients. We are often the ones to catch errors and prevent harm. Without us, the healthcare system would come to a halt.
Yeah, obviously we need physicians and care aides, too; we’re all part of a team. But without the nurses, who is going to administer the medications? Who’s going to be the eyes and ears for the physicians? Without nurses, patients would die. When the time comes for me to need a nurse, I want them to be the highest paid, most qualified, most experienced, and most dedicated one; not the one who is willing to work for the lowest pay.
Nurses deserve to get paid well
While it was nice to earn more money than the doctors, that’s probably not realistic for the long term. But the idea that nurses should make more money than they do isn’t crazy. When COVID first hit, we were “healthcare heroes.” It was us who the world relied on. It was us who put trash bags over our scrubs and reused masks until they fell apart. And it was us who realized our worth.
I do not feel overpaid. I am paid appropriately for my education, my skills, and my dedication to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of my patients. I feel my pay as a travel nurse is appropriate.
If hospitals want to stop relying on travel nurses to staff their facilities, the solution is simple: pay their employees more. The staff nurses have an option to leave and have a better-paying job elsewhere. The grass is greener. So, now is the time to make an environment which makes nurses want to stay.
We don’t want anything unreasonable. We want to be treated with respect. We want to be compensated adequately. We want a say in our policies. We want good benefits. We want pension funds for retirement. We want our facilities to support us when patients assault us. We want to be treated better overall.
It’s going to take more of a financial investment in us. That’s true. It’s going to cost more money. This is not a situation which will “go back to normal.” The travelers I know will never return to the old way of business. Once we realized our entire profession was chronically underpaid and underappreciated, it’s impossible for us to ever settle for less again.
This situation will only continue. Staff nurses will continue to flock towards travel nursing agencies until something changes. Capping our wages is not the answer. Doing that will cause a situation where only the most inexperienced nurses work at hospitals. Once they get experience, they’ll move on to higher-paying positions. That will cause a worse situation for hospitals and patients by creating a never-ending cycle of hiring and replacing nurses. The cost of training and lawsuits from poor care would outweigh the cost of simply providing a better environment.
A lot of travel nurses would be perfectly happy to return to a hospital staff job under the right circumstances. Traveling around and working for three months at a time in random cities isn’t something everyone wants to do for their entire careers. Having roots in a community is important. But so is financial freedom.
It’s up to large corporations to change their practices to entice us to leave our travel contracts. The answer is that hospitals need to make it appealing to work for them. They could hire the best people by giving them the best benefits. If they just focused on making people feel secure in their positions, for less cost than travel nurses, they’d have a facility fully staffed with happy and efficient nurses.
David I. Mancini is a Registered Nurse and a Licensed Paramedic. He’s a tech enthusiast, world traveler, and an eclectic eater. https://davidmancini.xyz
