Rural hospitals in Alabama struggle to find enough nurses to face COVID-19
J.W. Cowan began his career 40 years ago trying to recruit nurses to what he now calls “forgotten man’s territory” in rural Alabama.
“A good rural nurse, I don’t know of anything that’s any tougher than that,” he said. “They persevere. They put the community, they put the hospital first, and my hat just goes out to them.”
Today, he is still trying to recruit nurses to Choctaw County near Mississippi, except he’s doing it in a pandemic. And the job has only gotten tougher and nurses are more in demand across the country, making it even harder to staff rural hospitals.
Cowan is an administrator at Choctaw General Hospital. His staff are working back-to-back, 12-hour shifts during the pandemic. One nurse worked a 96-hour week, and it’s not unusual for nurses to work seven days in a row to keep the hospital staffed.
Read more: https://www.al.com/news/2020/11/rural-hospitals-in-alabama-struggle-to-find-enough-nurses-to-face-covid-19.html
