Science & Environment
Kaiser Health News
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service committed to in-depth coverage of health care policy and politics. KHN also reports on how the health care system — hospitals, doctors, nurses, insurers, governments, consumers — works.

Need a COVID-19 Nurse? That’ll Be $8,000 a Week

KUER 90.1 | By Rae Ellen Bichell,
Markian Hawryluk
Published December 1, 2020 at 9:34 AM MST
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
The fall surge in COVID cases has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need. That threatens to shift the supply of nurses toward more affluent areas, leaving rural and urban public hospitals short-staffed as the pandemic worsens, and some hospitals unable to care for critically ill patients.
herraez/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Science & EnvironmentCOVID-19
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Rae Ellen Bichell
Rae Ellen Bichell is a reporter for NPR's Science Desk. She first came to NPR in 2013 as a Kroc fellow and has since reported Web and radio stories on biomedical research, global health, and basic science. She won a 2016 Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award from the Foundation for Biomedical Research. After graduating from Yale University, she spent two years in Helsinki, Finland, as a freelance reporter and Fulbright grantee.
See stories by Rae Ellen Bichell
Markian Hawryluk
Support KUER