'Travelers' fill gap of Arizona's nursing shortage, which is 16%, while it is 11% nationwide.
If you're a cancer patient at University Medical Center or a psychiatric patient at University Physicians at Kino Hospital, your nurse could be a temp.
And this is good news.
Temps are likely to be more experienced and better paid than some staff nurses.
Local hospitals are hiring the Kelly Girls of nursing during a continuing national shortage.
In Arizona, the vacancy rate of registered nurses is 16 percent; nationally it is 11 percent.
Arizona hospitals must employ a certain number of nurses to meet mandated staffing levels, keep their accreditation and provide high-quality patient care.
These registered nurses - "travelers" - are hired by employment agencies that work with hospitals, placing them on renewable 13-week contracts.
To work in Arizona, they must be licensed here or in a state with similar licensing requirements.
Travelers are paid more than staff nurses. They also get housing stipends or luxury apartments and can work wherever and whenever they like.
Several Tucson hospitals that hire traveler nurses say the temp nurses make up between 1 percent and 3 percent of their registered nurses.
Marilyn Moniz is a registered psychiatric nurse from Virginia working this summer in the behavioral health unit at University Physicians Hospital at Kino.
She loves the heat and her pay - about double what she would get if she were on staff permanently, the nurse of 22 years said.
Moniz turned down a furnished apartment to live in her own 36-foot recreational vehicle in an RV park. She still has housing stipend money left, and "I get to have all my stuff with me." Traveler nurses are screened by any of more than 50 agencies, such as American Mobile Healthcare and NursesRX, which recruit travel nurses through such publications as the American Journal of Nursing, and the Internet.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.p...a4_travelnurse
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