Nurses' union, PCs call on auditor general, after report reveals N.L. spent over $34M on private nurses

Newfoundland and Labrador's Progressive Conservative party and the province's nurses' union is calling for an auditor general's investigation after a Globe and Mail report found the province spent $35.6 million on nurses from private agencies between April and August 2023.

In the years before the pandemic, the province spent an average of just over $1 million annually, the report found.

The Globe and Mail report, released Friday, also reveals that the private nursing firm hired by the province — Canadian Health Labs, a Toronto-based company — charged nearly double the rate of similar agencies in Canada. 

CHL demanded rates paid to the agency that in some instances exceeded more than $300 an hour for each nurse, according to the report, while general duty registered nurses make $37 to $47 per hour.

"It is mind-boggling," said Yvette Coffey, president of the Registered Nurses' Union Newfoundland and Labrador. "And the lack of oversight on behalf of Newfoundland and Labrador is astounding."

Food, cable bills, furniture

Coffey says the report revealed that the province also paid CHL for its nurses' training, cable bills, and in some cases, furniture. 

She said the province has done a "very poor job" of keeping track of the amount of taxpayer money being spent and the nurses' union is calling for an investigation by the auditor general into the funds being spent on private agencies.

"They got double-paid for meal allowances, plus making over six times the amount that any registered nurse in Newfoundland and Labrador is making," said Coffey. 

"I'm fuming today."

Progressive Conservative Leader Tony Wakeham said in an interview with CBC News that he was shocked to discover many of the details in the report, including the fact that CHL billed the province $1.6 million in meal allowances.

"It appears that this contract was started when a lobbyist for the travel nursing agency contacted an aide in the premier's office," he said.

"And within a short period of time, the Furey Liberal government awarded the sole-source contract to this same company."

Wakeham said the PCs have proposed that every student enrolled in a health-care program in one of the province's universities or colleges should be offered a job on their way into the program, as opposed to on the way out. He said the province needs to focus more on retaining nurses than scrambling for expensive out-of-province solutions.

"The Liberal government here has not been leading, they've been chasing, and because we're always chasing, we do not have plans in place," he said. "We're always reacting."

Coffey said there needs to be more oversight of how taxpayers' money is being spent, and that more needs to be done to attract and retain nurses.

She said the province's expenditures on travel nurses send the wrong message to registered nurses.

"There's three Ds when it comes to what this does to the current workforce," she said.

"It shows them disrespect, it's demoralizing and it's a disregard for their well-being and the retention of our own nurses in this publicly funded system."

Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.