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Ohio's hospitals are using 'visiting nurses' to alleviate the shortage during the pandemic

 nurse
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Some nurses now work for the contract agencies that provide nurses to hospitals, instead of the hospitals themselves, as they can double or triple their income.

Despite the fact that 2,300 Ohio National Guardsmen have been sent into some Ohio hospitals, many hospitals are so shorthanded that they are turning to the costly practice of hiring traveling nurses and medical professionals to help meet the needs. But that’s not solving the problem.

Ohio Hospital Associationspokesman John Palmer says many hospitals are hiring what are known as “traveling nurses” from companies that provide contract nurses during this pandemic.

“It can be pretty expensive for hospitals to bring in caregivers through these agencies,” Palmer said.

Palmer says these services can cost hospitals a few thousand dollars a week for one employee. And that's not all. He says nurses at hospitals have been leaving those jobs to take positions at these contract agencies, making two or three times more money in the process. Palmer says he doesn’t know how many health care workers have defected to agencies within the past year.
Copyright 2022 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.