Mississippi healthcare suppliers say they could have to shut flooring and scale back affected person beds after shedding lots of of nurses because of the latest expiration of a federal contract put in place to assist the state battle the coronavirus pandemic.
Over the past wave of COVID-19, 900 nurses had been deployed to hospitals throughout the state below a 60-day contract funded by the federal authorities. That contract expired Nov. 1 and the variety of virus circumstances has subsided because the summer season peak.
These nurses had been essential for caring for sufferers in the course of the virus surge, however in addition they helped fill one other pressing want — filling gaps left by nurses who’ve left the state over the past two years.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves stated in August that the state had misplaced not less than 2,000 nurses over the course of the pandemic. Nurses are leaving Mississippi for different states and touring nurse firms that may pay increased wages.
Jessica Lewis, government director of human assets at Singing River Well being System on the Mississippi coast, informed the Solar Herald that Singing River has misplaced round 240 nurses in the course of the pandemic.
The expiration of the federal contract will imply the hospital system is shedding 70 employees positions and 100 hospital beds.
“It is only a large taffy pull … everyone seems to be scurrying on the market making an attempt to get the expertise and preserve their doorways open,” Lewis informed the Herald.
Singing River joined 17 different main well being methods, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Mississippi Home Speaker Philip Gunn in writing an Oct. 21 letter to Reeves asking for additional help to handle the nursing scarcity utilizing federal pandemic aid cash allotted to the state.
“We’re asking that you simply put aside a portion of these funds to shortly set up a program to incent healthcare employees, significantly nurses, to stay in and return to their hospitals,” the letter reads.
In a press release to The Related Press on Wednesday, Reeves’ spokesperson Bailey Martin stated the contract nurses had been solely permitted to work with coronavirus sufferers, per federal laws. On the peak of the surge, there have been 1,667 Mississippians in hospital beds with COVID-19, she stated. As of Tuesday, that quantity decreased by virtually 90% to 172.
“The contract fulfilled its mission,” she stated, including that Reeves believes it’s critically necessary to extend the variety of workforce improvement alternatives for healthcare professionals.
“The Governor’s Workplace is discussing nurse retention applications with the legislature and looking out ahead to working with them to plot an answer that can have a long-term impression on assembly Mississippi’s healthcare skilled wants,” she stated.
