By Liz Carey for The Daily Yonder. Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for North Carolina News Service, reporting for The Daily Yonder-Public News Service Collaboration.
Rural hospitals, already struggling with financial strains due to COVID-19, face an even more significant threat, experts say: the workforce shortage.
Hospitals say they are short on workers in all areas of the health-care system, not just the clinical ones. According to the American Hospital Association, about 20% of all hospitals across the country expect worker shortages to reach dire levels.
“It (the pandemic) has really stressed the workforce in ways that we’re not going to recover from for decades,” said Julia Harris, a senior policy analyst with the Bipartisan Policy Center. According to Haris, 2021 saw the biggest drop in the number of nurses in the workforce in history. Over 100,000 nurses disappeared from the hospitals’ nursing supply, putting a lot of pressure on smaller facilities to hire nurses.
“But then, the smaller rural hospitals really can’t compete for dollars with other centers and so workforce is their number one expense,” she said. “When we’re talking about competition to keep the people needed to run a hospital, it’s very scary to think about what they’re going to do when the federal funds dry up.”
The pandemic hasn’t stopped causing workforce issues, said Dr. James Hoekstra, president of High Point Medical Center, during a webinar hosted by the North Carolina Healthcare Association.
“The stresses that were put on the health-care systems, especially the rural hospitals, during the pandemic are actually continuing,” Hoekstra said during the webinar. “We have lost a lot of providers to retirement. We’ve lost a lot of providers to going to different areas of the country to travel and earn more money. We’ve lost a lot of providers and staff to burnout and what we’ have been left with is a situation where we’ve had to hire a lot of what we call travelers or contract labor.”
That leaves the hospital with higher costs.
During the pandemic, thanks to federal Covid funding, rural hospitals were able to pay top dollar for travel nurses, sometimes paying as much as $200 per hour. Those salaries were subsidized with federal COVID relief funds. Now, all hospitals pay between $7,400 and $1,400 per week, according to Vivian Healthcare, a health-care labor placement company. And with COVID funding drying up, hospitals are responsible for all of those fees.
Whitfield Regional Hospital in Demopolis, Alabama, lists a travel nurse opening on Vivian for just under $1,700 a week – which includes a more than $900 a week salary, plus a nearly $700 a week tax-free stipend for a 13-week assignment. The hospital currently has 20 openings for full-time nurses.
According to a Vivian, staff nurses make far less than travel nurses. Currently, the national average for a staff nurse is about $37 an hour, while travel nurses make on average $3,600 a week, the spokesman said in an interview.
“Rural hospitals pay more generally, especially factoring in cost of living (eg Houston average weekly is $2,761. Lubbock, Texas, is $2,831).During the pandemic, wages have shown the strongest correlation to COVID case counts rather than geography,” the spokesman said.
At Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, nurse positions start around $30 an hour, CEO Shawn Tester told Kaiser Health News. At the height of the pandemic, the hospital paid staffing agencies around $175 per hour. Now that fee is down to over $100 an hour, he said, but the hospital is working to negotiate that rate down further.
According to the US Bureau of Nursing Labor Statistics, US health-care will need to fill nearly 200,000 organizations positions every year from now until 2030. Some studies even project that the country will face a shortage of more than 29,000 nurse practitioners by 2025.
Vivian’s research into nursing shows the outlook for clinical staffing doesn’t look good. Nearly 65% of the 3,000 nurses they said they were looking to transition out of the profession in the next five years. Almost half (44%) said they felt like their unit is short-staffed “all the time.”
National organizations hope Congress will step in to do something about it.
Print a letter to US Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., chair and ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, the AHA said that 781 hospitals across the country, or 18.9 %, said they would face critical staffing shortages.
“While the nation may be rounding the corner in the battle against COVID-19, the health-care workforce continues to contend with many immediate challenges related to the pandemic, as well as a health-care landscape that has been deeply altered,” the AHA wrote.
The AHA is asking Congress for $1.51 billion to fund health-care workforce development programs for the 2023 fiscal year’s budget, including $374 million for rural health programs. The request represents an increase of $43 million over levels approved in 2022.
“Rural health programs… are vital to demonstrate that needed services remain available in America’s rural communities,” the AHA said. “We also urge Congress to support funding to establish a Rural Emergency Hospital Technical Assistance Program, to support rural hospitals who are making the transition to maintain critical services for their communities.”
get more stories like this via email
Ballots are due for Oregon’s primary election on Tuesday, and one key issue for voters is the rights of workers who grow the state’s food. Farmworkers were considered essential during the pandemic, but still are fighting for better conditions.
Aldo Solano, strategic partnerships manager for Oregon Food Bank, said farmworkers already were more likely to experience hunger, and the pandemic made it worse.
“Farmworkers are some of the lowest-paid workers in Oregon, earning less than $20,000 a year on average,” observed Solano. “We understand at Oregon Food Bank that, in order to be able to really eliminate hunger at its root causes, we need to be fighting and working to improve the different systems that perpetuate poverty and that create conditions for folks to be food insecure.”
Solano pointed out Oregon’s food system is anchored by nearly 175,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers.
Although pay is low for Oregon farmworkers, they achieved a victory in this year’s legislative session. Lawmakers passed a bill securing overtime pay for those who worked more than 40 hours a week.
Solano noted it was a major focus for Oregon Food Bank during the session.
“When we asked the question of how do we eliminate hunger, the root causes of hunger, this was one of the priority pieces of legislation that some of our partners were working on that we were able to get behind and support in different ways,” Solano recalls.
He added organizations like the farmworkers’ rights group Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) were instrumental in getting the bill passed.
Oregon Food Bank, a nonpartisan nonprofit, candidates for governor about food
insecurity. The responses are posted on its website and include a question about conditions for farmworkers.
Solano emphasizes it will say a lot about the candidates.
“It’s important to take a hard look at how officials or the folks who are running for office are speaking about, I think, a community that’s so vital to the state and our communities who are at the beginning of our food chain,” Solano contended.
The deadline to vote is Tuesday. Drop sites for ballots will be open until 8 pm
Disclosure: Oregon Food Bank contributes to our fund for reporting on Hunger/Food/Nutrition Issues. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.
get more stories like this via email
Small Montana meat processors are on the front lines against the large companies that control the industry. Funding from the American Rescue Plan is helping these processors compete.
$7.8 million were secured for 30 Montana businesses from the COVID relief legislation. That includes $450,000 for Hamilton Packing Company in the Bitterroot Valley.
Jason Schlange is owner of the business, which has been around since 1969.
“All of our stuff here,” said Schlange, “it’s a little bit older so we’re going to be to get it up to snuff and do a little bit of expanding in the process so we have a little bit more room for cooler and freezer storage, which is important. And we’ll be able to upgrade our retail facility, so have a little bit more to offer.”
Sen. Jon Tester – D-MT – led efforts to secure funds for small meat processors in Montana.
He says consolidation among the country’s four big meat processors – which owns the vast majority of the market – is driving meat processors, ranchers and other small businesses to close.
Schlange said the big four – Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS and National Beef Packing – can have an outsized impact on the market when they choose to.
“So if they kind of try and put their thumb on something,” said Schlange, “I think these funds are going to help a lot of smaller meat processors like myself to be able to take care of their local communities better.”
Schlange said supply-chain issues from the pandemic have highlighted the importance of local meat processors to be able to continue serving communities, even as meat was in short supply at larger stores.
get more stories like this via email
North Dakota ranchers are still their losses from the spring snowstorms. They are being to tap into federal relief, and some are calling for better payout.
Pat Becker, a rancher from Sioux County, said lost at least 50 calves and expects the number to increase. Becker pointed out he and his workers did their best to protect the herds, but the wind and snow proved to be overwhelming.
“That big group of cows, you know, you can’t put ’em inside; we don’t have facilities,” Becker explained. “We got them bedded down, and then the wind switches, then they want to drift away. And that’s when we lost quite a few calves.”
The federal government’s Livestock Indemnity Program can help recover some losses. Payments are equal to 75% of the average fair market value for the animals.
Becker noted while it softens the blow, a new payment structure means he’s getting $175 for smaller calves, far below the going rate. Sen. Kevin Cramer, RN.D., has requested an adjustment in payment levels.
The pain felt from a wet and snowy spring follows last year’s severe drought. Becker, a member of the North Dakota Farmers Union, acknowledges the precipitation has helped, but the magnitude of events makes it harder to keep moving forward.
“Your plan is to build a ranch for your children,” Becker remarked. “And it’s just tough because, you know, since 2015, we’ve been lucky just to break even, you know, and it’s really a struggle.”
He suggested proper support for weather disasters would create more stability for independent producers. In turn, Becker added it can make farming more attractive to younger generations.
In the meantime, affected producers can connect with their Farm Service Agency office to see if their losses meet the aid threshold. Documentation must be reported within 30 days of a livestock loss.
Disclosure: The North Dakota Farmers Union contributes to our fund for reporting on Rural/Farming Issues. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.
get more stories like this via email
.
