Rural hospitals in upstate New York are seeking millions of dollars in additional aid after two years of the pandemic have stretched their operations and led to acute staffing shortages. 

The push from small hospitals come as the state budget talks this month in Albany are expected to center around, at least in part, how to move forward from the COVID pandemic. 

Organizaiotns like the Iroquois Healthcare Alliance, which represents 50 hospitals and health care networks across 32 counties, are calling for a significant rise in Medicaid rates as well as $100 million in state-backed funding for upstate hospitals. 

The group is also calling for sustained spending like $10 million for ia workforce investment organization and $500,000 for health care workers to learn about job opportunities in rural parts of the state. 

Staff shortages have risen at the group's member hospitals. A survey found that as of this month, emergency room nurse openings are up more than 200% as well as nurse practitioner and out-patient nurse positions. 

All told there are 17,703 open positions at these hospitals. 

Health care officials and executives have blamed a variety of factors for the staff vacancies at hospitals and health care facilities, including burnout from the pandemic, a wave of retirements and vaccine mandates. 

A requirement that all health care workers receive a COVID booster shot has been put on hold by state health officials. 

“IHA is immensely grateful to Governor Hochul for acknowledging IHA’s intense and weeks-long advocacy regarding the devastating effects if the February COVID-19 vaccination booster mandate was not suspended,” said Gary Fitzgerald, the president and CEO of the Iroquois Healthcare Alliance “This is what leadership looks like.”

But rural hospitals have been under a specific strain, and upstate residents even before the pandemic typically had longer travel times to reach a health care setting. 

Dozens of hospitals earlier this year had to suspend elective surgeries and procedures amid another surge of COVID brought on by the omicron variant due to a staffed bed shortage. 

“IHA is ready to work with Gov. Hochul and the Legislature to ensure that the unique needs of Upstate and rural hospitals are fully and adequately addressed," Fitzgerald said. “In order to have a robust healthcare workforce in the post-pandemic era these items must be addressed.”