Some 60 million people across the country's rural areas rely on small local hospitals for medical care. But as the delta variant rages on, the hospitals that provided a lifeline to these communities now find themselves drained of the resources that sustained them: nurses.
A boom in demand for travel nurses, who work short stints at hospitals around the country to fill high-demand positions, has exacerbated a longtime staffing issue, with rural nurses enticed away by salaries that can be almost 10 times what they made in their hometown.
