27/01/2023
How much is a nurse worth? &s How much should hospitals be paying them? Another way to approach this question is to ask, "What is the cost of NOT having that nurse?" As nurses flee the bedside to other careers or travel nursing, we're getting a realtime look at a nurse's value. And it's often times upwards of 90000mk/hr.
"We can't afford that!" say hospital businesses, whose senior administrators often make well above that. But whether you like it or not, healthcare is in a capitalistic system, and it's up to hospitals to make it WORTH it for the nurse to work there. That's the free market! Right now, more and more nurses are finding these marginal, prorated, pay increases laughable considering the conditions they're working in-- and deciding it's not worth it.
Nurses are, however, seeing the rates that hospitals are willing to pay travel nurses and deciding that IS worth it. What we're observing is the free market reacting to the dire shortage of nurses willing to work in these conditions. Fixing the conditions will take some time, but meaningful pay increases can begin now. And if hospitals think they can't afford it, they'll soon realize the cost of not having that nurse is much, much higher.
Namwino AtchenE 23
