A ‘Bidding War’ For People: Georgia Nurses Recruited To New York
New York has been recruiting health care workers from around the country, including from Georgia.
Kathy Willens / Associated Press
Coronavirus hotspots, like New York City, have been offering higher pay for the nation’s health care professionals. About 25,000 people from around the country have volunteered to go to New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo pleaded late last month that they to “please come help us in New York right now.”
But this is a problem for places like Georgia, which haven’t seen their coronavirus peaks yet, and need healthcare workers too. A widely cited model predicts Georgia’s peak will hit May 1, so healthcare leaders in the state and the governor’s office are trying to find ways to prevent those nurses from leaving.
“We’re extremely worried about it,” said Matt Caseman, CEO of the Georgia Nurses Association.
“We already have a nursing shortage as it is, and the numbers here in Georgia continue to rise with the virus, so more nurses are needed on the front lines.”
He said Georgia has the fifth-highest nursing shortage in the country.
The association is working with the governor’s office to try to come up with ways to prevent nurses from leaving, like student loan forgiveness and workers compensation.
The state has hired a health care staffing agency itself to recruit 570 health care workers to Georgia.
In the meantime, nurses like Rachell Dumas have answered the call for help from New York.
“I watched the news, and then you see New York, they’re really suffering,” said Dumas, an ICU nurse who normally works in Atlanta. “So I just figured, you know, New York would need my services more than Georgia would.”
She said she wasn’t seeing that many coronavirus patients in her Atlanta hospital when she decided to sign up for the two-month stint up north. Her Long Island hospital, by comparison, is treating everyone who walks in as if they have COVID-19 until they’re ruled out.
“One of the reasons why I became a nurse was to change lives and to save lives. That’s why I went directly into the ICU after graduation,” she said. “I felt like, this is my chance to really make an even greater difference.”
Her friends and family text her constantly to check on her. Her first day at her New York hospital was “intense, to say the least,” she said.
“There are a lot of sick people…you hear on the news, but it’s not until you’re face to face with taking care of these people that you realize the magnitude of how sick people are and how many people are sick.”
As a high-demand ICU nurse, Dumas is making quadruple her normal earnings in Atlanta for this two-month stint. Caseman with the Georgia Nurses Association said they’re hearing reports of offers more than double average Georgia salaries for other positions.
But Dumas is having to use the same N95 mask for all two months. Those masks are designed to be thrown out after health care workers see each patient.
“What it’s turned into is a bidding war for supplies. And now we’re seeing it for people,” said Scott Steiner, CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany, Georgia.
Albany has one of the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 cases in the world right now and was at the forefront of Georgia’s outbreak.
Steiner said they’ve already lost critical care travel nurses to better offers in New York, basically doubling their hourly pay. “There’s no way we could compete with that on the long term, and it’s going to be a struggle in the short term,” he said.
His hospital system normally relies on travel nurses for about 15% of its needs; this has just exacerbated the competition, he said.
“You know that’s just what it’s become, and we certainly know and can understand the situation New York is in, but if this continues I think what we’re going to see is the highest bidder will get the most resources, whether we’re talking about masks or we’re talking about people,” he said.
Dumas said she wants people to know that no matter where they are, or their pay, nurses are working extremely hard right now, often without the equipment or colleagues they need.
“Not to say I’m not scared. But I feel like it’s for a greater good, you know,” she said. “And I’m very religious. I just feel like God will make sure I’m covered. And If not, then I died in the line of duty. Honestly.”
When her New York contract ends, Dumas plans to head back to work in Georgia, after a two-week quarantine.
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