As COVID cases begin a surge through North Texas, a second group of travel nurses is arriving to help overwhelmed hospitals. CEO and president of the Dallas Fort Worth Hospital Council, Stephen Love, told CBS that hospitals need the help.
“We are getting a second group over and above what we had thought. How many we’re going to end up with we’ve got to see,” Love said.
Healthcare workers across the state have been strained by recent surges in COVID hospitalizations. As a response, hospitals have asked for additional staff. This is partly due to the number of healthcare workers who have tested positive and had to quarantine.
“We were really kind of understaffed even before this latest surge with Omicron, but now many of our own workers are testing positive, and they’re having to isolate or quarantine for five or six days, which further reduces the workforce,” Love told CBS.
The first wave of travel nurses arrived in North Texas at the beginning of January. The state provided 1,000 nurses as reinforcements, CBS reported. During this time, many staff members had already begun to test positive.
“I talk to the hospitals, and I can tell you easily 10 to 15% of the staff are out on a daily basis for medical reasons,” Love said.
At the beginning of January, the Director of the Texas Nurses Association, Mary Vitullo, told CBS COVID patients were rapidly being admitted into the emergency rooms.
“It definitely creates a lot of stress and anxiety, mainly because a lot of nurses are facing burnout, and it’s not just nurses,” Vitullo said. “It’s the entire healthcare continuum. We’ve been dealing with this pandemic together as one team.”
According to CBS, a recent change in quarantine guidelines, from ten to five days, has also been a help to understaffed hospitals.
“Ten days versus five days has been a big help,” Love explained.
He told CBS when hospitals receive travel nurses, they are then placed into their specialty.
Love said, “For example, they may have labor and delivery nurses, they may have critical care nurses, and we have to put them in the area that they come.”
According to Vitullo, having an influx of these nurses allows North Texas hospitals to “provide more seamless care.”
There are certain obstacles that come with employing travel nurses, Vitullo told CBS. Some difficulties include determining the most efficient way to employ them and ensuring they quickly integrate into day-to-day operations.
“If you come in as a travel nurse, you’re only there for a very short period of time,” she explained. “You might not be as familiar with [the facility,] and they’ll have to learn at a more rapid pace to be able to provide care.”
Larger hospitals in the area have taken in transfer patients during these surges. There have been rumors of patients being transferred from overwhelmed hospitals in Oklahoma, but Love told CBS nothing has been confirmed.
Some travel nurses in the second group arrived in North Texas on January 20 and have already begun work.
