These nurses are hired through travel nursing recruitment agencies and have contracts for up to six months with a healthcare provider who can pay them more in a week than many permanent nurses make in a month.
“What a lot of nurses are really looking for is crisis cash,” said Erica Wagner, a travel nurse based in Rochester, Minnesota. “The contracts, which are about 48 hours a week, in a crisis-level environment where the hospital is overwhelmed with COVID patients and you are brought in and you may be taking in more patients than you normally do, so it is a little “harder work, I’ve seen those contracts everywhere, gross wages, $ 5,000 to $ 10,000 a week depending on the state.”
She also said that some contracts required her to provide her own healthcare services, which can be one of the drawbacks of an independent caregiver. However, some contracts also include a grant for food and housing, she said, which is untaxed money that nurses are supposed to use to pay for their living expenses.
“You choose how you use it,” she said. “You get the money to duplicate your apartment in another city.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in spring 2020, Wagner said she had decided to take her first contract out of the country hopefully to make an impact.
“My first out-of-state contract was to go to Manhattan,” she said. “I wanted to help the best I could right away, and I also knew in the back of my mind that I could stay in Minnesota and work with COVID patients when it was hit, or I could go where it was needed most, and “Don’t wait for it … so I decided to do it.”
Sidewalk chalk adorns a New York street during the COVID-19 pandemic as residents express their gratitude for the frontline health workers. (submitted)
Grateful signage will be displayed for frontline health workers in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. (submitted)
During the pandemic, she said she worked in about 11 different hospitals for different durations in multiple states, including Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, and California.
Wagner said contract lengths can vary with one provider, but she prefers contracts in the six to twelve week range. She recently returned from a six week contract in Guam, which will be her last travel contract, as she will be attending anesthesia school.
“I really wanted to go out with a bang and do something that was really memorable,” she said. “And I also wanted to serve another culture.”
Grateful signage from residents adorns the windows of a health clinic in Guam during the COVID-19 pandemic. (submitted)
Erica Wagner, a traveling nurse, displays an affixed US flag while on a diving trip in Guam during the COVID-19 pandemic. (submitted)
Resources are scarce on an island as most supplies are dependent on deliveries, she said.
“If your patient needs a particular drug to keep intubated while on a ventilator, you may have that drug on Monday, but you may not have that drug on Tuesday because delivery won’t come in on Wednesday and we’ve gone out. “Said Wagner. “So it takes a lot of instinct to be creative and to be very patient.”
Wagner had worked as a travel nurse in Minnesota for about a year prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, one of the working conditions being that her contract had to be more than 80 miles from her permanent home.
“My house is in Rochester, but I worked in Minneapolis,” she said. “My idea was just to go over the different hospitals, get contracts here and there, before possibly moving to Minneapolis. I wanted to see which hospital would be best for me.”
Wagner also said that experience and flexibility are two important qualities of travel nurses, as they are expected to step into crisis centers and be as productive as staff who have been in their respective hospitals for years.
“It was absolutely insane and definitely the most challenging time of my career, even though I can explore cities like Manhattan and go to Guam and dive on my days off,” she said. “I tell my young friends who are single and childless, especially those without pets, do it. There’s no better time.”
Travel nurses have helped some rural hospitals like Essentia Health St. Mary’s in Detroit Lakes expand their intensive care bed capacity during times of peak COVID-19 cases.
“Our intensive care unit is an 8-bed unit, and we have expanded to 12 beds at that time,” said Melissa Peterson, regional director of nursing at Essentia Health St. Mary’s in Detroit Lakes. “That travelers came in and helped during the initial surge in November, December when we had travelers here was really a step up … we needed additional help to keep our continuity of supply going.”
Peterson said she expected the travel nurses hired at Essentia Health St. Mary’s to function “fully” and to perform the contracts for which they were hired. She also said when she went to nursing school she was told to have three to five years of nursing experience before starting travel.
“It’s always good to have your own people who know your business, know your patients, know your community, and know how to care for your people,” said Peterson. “Of course we would rather have our own staff … but if you have to go the way (the traveling nurse) then you will go that way and help as best you can.”
They currently employ approximately 100 travel nurses across the Essentia Health system, while travel nurses are rarely needed as it was before the pandemic, said Sarah Carlson, senior director of human resources at Essentia Health.
“It’s probably not the most sustainable,” said Carlson. “In a pandemic, it’s great to be able to tap into the travel nurse, but there is also no guarantee of hours as a travel nurse.”
She added that as COVID-19 case numbers fell after the winter surge, contract positions for travel nurses quickly dissolved.
Fastaff, a travel nursing recruitment agency, posts its current Minnesota job openings and estimated weekly salary on its website. (Screenshot)
Heather Sehnert, Senior Branch Director at Favorite Healthcare Staff in Roseville, Minnesota, said they typically have between 100 and 150 nurses looking for travel contracts, and some of those nurses have been traveling with them for more than 20 years.
“We have many nurses who stay and are extended in certain facilities,” said Sehnert. “There are some who do 26 weeks at a time, but they stay. Sometimes they take a two week break to take a breather, maybe to go home, and then they come back. “
She added that travel nurses are the reason some providers are currently able to fill some facilities.
“They play a major role in helping the smaller municipal institutions to meet a need, be it in the short term to six weeks or in the longer term and extended,” said Sehnert. “There will always be a need.”
