AP
12/24/21
Iowa anticipates spending $9.2 million to shore up health care staffing at strained hospitals such as the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and Mercy Iowa City amid the latest COVID-19 surge.
The Des Moines Register reports that 100 out-of-state nurses and respiratory therapists began arriving in Iowa earlier this month. They are being placed in 17 facilities in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Des Moines, Mason City, Dubuque, Waterloo, Council Bluffs, Ames and Sioux City.
The UIHC will be assigned ten new out-of-state nurses, with Mercy Iowa City getting two.
The state will spend about $15,000 per nurse for each of the next six weeks. The amount is high because the state will pay $220 per regular hour to a Kansas staffing company for each supplemental nurse, and $330 for each of the overtime hours that the nurses are expected to work each week.