Beshear pleads with furloughed KY health workers to reject offers from other states

Jessica Estes of Lewisport near Owensboro makes about $60 an hour as a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Kentucky.

She was offered $180 an hour, plus free lodging, travel expenses and a food allowance if she would bring her skills to assist coronvavirus patients in the hard-hit state of New York.

“That’s a lot of money, three times my salary, even if it meant an 80-hour week, which I have done many times,” she said. “But I feel I have a responsibility to the residents of Kentucky. Plus my family would prefer that I stay in the state.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear would be pleased with Estes’ decision.

The Democratic governor is worried that some of the thousands of health care workers who have been furloughed or laid off because of the state’s ban on elective medical procedures will choose to accept lucrative work offers in other states instead of applying for unemployment benefits as they wait to help with Kentucky’s expected spike of COVID-19 patients.

Read more: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article241859966.html