Traveling nurses' ranks estimated at 50,000

In the past two years, the number of traveling nurses working in the United States has risen by nearly 20,000, according one estimate.

In 2018, a national survey found that some 31,000 traveling nurses were working across the country.

With the COVID-19 pandemic now sweeping across the US, David Deane, senior vice-president of Wanderly, a website where healthcare professionals can compare offers from various agencies, estimates there are at least 50,000 such nurses.

He believes that many of them are postoperative nurses who were laid off when their hospitals stopped doing elective surgeries during the initial lockdowns.

A hospital in the US is not just competing with facilities in other states, he said.

"We've sent nurses to Aruba, the Bahamas and Curacao because they've needed help with COVID-19," Deane said, adding that the nurses are making $5,000 a week and all their expenses are paid.

Krucial Staffing, a company which specializes in sending healthcare workers to disaster locations, has reserved hotels and rented dozens of buses to get nurses to hot spots in New York and Texas.

CEO Brian Cleary said that since the pandemic emerged, the number of administrative staff members at the company has risen from 12 to more than 200.

He said that with a base rate of $95 an hour, some nurses working overtime end up making $10,000 a week.

However, he added that there are downsides, as these temporary jobs do not come with health insurance. It is also a "boom-and-bust" market, and sometimes staff nurses often show contempt for their traveling counterparts.

April Hansen, a vice-president at Aya Healthcare, one of the country's largest healthcare staffing companies, said a major factor helping with the recruitment of more nurses is that many states have just eased licensing requirements in response to COVID-19. This is making it easier for traveling nurses to move from state to state, avoiding sometimes copycat applications and screening.