Why are healthcare workers traveling?

The idea of workforces traveling or working outside of their hometown isn’t a new concept. Electricians, Oilfield workers, Construction workers, etc. have been doing it all along. People educated and trained in a trade will go where the work is; if there is more work and/or more money away from home, so be it. It’s that way with healthcare workers as well. Travel nursing is not a new concept, but it is in the news now, as is anything having to do with healthcare and the pandemic.

So why does a nurse choose travel nursing?

As with anything, there are several reasons. If a nurse is young and not tied down by kids or family they might want to “see the world” and travel for travel’s sake. A lot of nurses are traveling because the pay is really high right now for travel nurses. Some may travel just to gain new and different experiences that they wouldn’t have in their hometown hospital. And then there is the reason that I am now traveling as a nurse.

The hospital that I was working at in my hometown is broken. Not broken from getting the shit beat out of it during a pandemic sort of broken, but broken from within by its administration. The politics and mismanagement of staff and patients for the all-mighty dollar is sickening. The lies told and abuse of staff, that have been loyal and worked hard for the patients, is too much to take anymore.

The reason I am traveling as a nurse is so that I can just be a nurse. I sign a contract to work at a hospital. I go to work and I take care of patients. I nurse patients and help my coworkers and then I go back to my Airbnb. I don’t care about the politics of the place I am working at. I don’t need to buy into the drama of any particular healthcare system.

In a world where we were the heroes a year ago, we are now the enemy of so many. Nurses have always been the face of healthcare. When the world, as a whole, saw so many sick and dying they rallied around nursing because we were sacrificing so much while everyone else was safe in their homes. Now a year later, and the pandemic rages on; but now with all of the political fighting over masks and vaccines, nurses are still the face of healthcare. Now we are the enemy because why isn’t it fixed yet? and why are there still so few beds? and how dare a nurse have an opinion about masking or being mandated to be vaccinated?

It’s kind of a relaxing feeling to be in a community where I don’t know their views on masking and I don’t know if their schools are open or not. It’s very “head in the sand” but it works for me. After almost two years of knowing every in and out of what we were doing and why we were being told to do it, at my home hospital, I am enjoying just being a nurse.

The thing the public needs to know is that whether your nurse is a traveling nurse or lives in the same community, is that nurses care. If a nurse was a nurse before 2020 and is still working at the bedside, then they care. If they are brand new, they care. It doesn’t matter where they call home. Where they call work is right there with the patient.

And that is good for this nurse’s soul.