Many members of the US Congress are currently urging the US government and Covid-19 response team to implement a wage cap on agency travel nurses in facilities, citing the high wages that travel nurses as crippling to our hospitals. A circulating letter with over 200 signatures fails to recognize or acknowledge the true problems at hand in our healthcare system. Instead, it urges a wage cap in order to "protect patients in dire need of life-saving health care treatment and prevent conduct that is exacerbating the shortage of nurses and straining the healthcare system."  

Ironically, travel nursing pay is being cited as a contributing factor in the nursing shortage and strain on our healthcare system. For those of us working on the frontlines, we know that this is entirely the opposite of the truth. It is in fact that generous travel packages that are keeping many hospitals afloat at this time with staffing and maximizing bed capacity during unprecedented times. The pandemic has simply exposed the many flaws of our system, but apparently not clearly enough for our elected officials to advocate for us. We all know that wage caps are going to have a detrimental effect on staffing, forcing even more nurses to give up working at the bedside and further worsening the problem at hand.

What about encouraging legislation to protect the safety and rights of nurses? What about legislation to nationalize safe nurse to patient ratios? What about legislation to set a fair, competitive minimum pay for nursing? Reach out to your elected officials and voice your concerns. There are many solutions out there, but this isn't one of them.