As a rural hospital worker, I call BS that they can't afford to pay for travel nurses. My hospital is part of a larger system (as most are) and took away our 401k match, doesn't pay hazard pay, gave us a one-time-only $400 "give thanks bonus" this week, cancelled annual raises, is operating over capacity, patients are on cots in hallways, and we're working over our stated nurse-patient ratios (we usually get 4 or 5 patients, but we're somehow more supposed to safely care for 7-8.) Oh, and and they just posted a $3 billion (that's billion with a B) quarterly profit. Bullshit they can't pay us more. The problem is, they aren't willing to pay us more, so people are leaving.