DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa anticipates spending $9.2 million to shore up health care staffing at strained hospitals 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 Davenport, Des Moines, Iowa City, Mason City, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, Waterloo, Council Bluffs, Ames and Sioux City.
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.
The Des Moines Register noted that four nurses are in Council Bluffs at CHI Health Mercy and five at Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital.
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