Nurses' union upset with health authority's plan to standardize travel nurse contracts

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services is seeking to standardize the contract it offers to private nursing agencies, but the union that represents nurses in the province says it's a step in the wrong direction.

N.L. Health Services issued a request for proposals on Wednesday, which in a news release it described as part of a commitment to "implement cost-effective arrangements to address human resources challenges."

Debbie Molloy, the health authority's vice president of human resources, told CBC News each of the former four regional authorities had independent contracts with private nursing agencies prior to amalgamating — each with different rates and terms.

"By standardizing the rates, we've been able to ensure that we get best value in terms of the amount that we're paying. And we're also ensuring that we have the same terms and conditions," Molloy said Tuesday.

All contracts will be awarded for two years to an approved list of agencies, Molloy said. Agency nurses will only be used when other employment sources — like nurses already hired in the public system — have been exhausted.

"That is always the very first thing that we try and do. And agency is only ever used if we've exhausted all of our efforts to hire people directly with us," she said.

Molloy said this request for proposals mainly applies to nurses, but said the wording was left open in case agencies are required for other positions in the future.

Union leader taken aback by move

But Yvette Coffey, president of the Registered Nurses' Union of Newfoundland and Labrador, said the announcement left her upset and taken aback.

She said she learned about the proposal through the media on Wednesday morning.

"That's very problematic, because I do know that the new CEO, Karen Stone, has committed that we would be in constant communication, and especially around announcements such as this," Coffey said.

"We think that this is the wrong direction. It's the exact opposite of the commitment that N.L. Health Services announced a few months back with their plan to ween off of agency nurses in Newfoundland and Labrador. You know, we thought that they'd be weening them off, not signing a two-year contract for more agency nurses."

According to documents obtained by an access-to-information request filed by CBC News in July, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services spent $91 million on travel nursing in 2023.

In May, Molloy and then N.L. Health Services CEO David Diamond announced plans to gradually reduce the use of agency nurses by April 2026 — but Diamond noted the health authority still was expecting to spend $70 million this year on agency nurses.

Coffey said the money could have better uses, like ensuring better working conditions and helping to eliminate violence nurses face on the job.

She also sees the move as a "further erosion of the public health care system," noting that some nurses have chosen to leave the public sector for the better pay, benefits and flexibility working for a private company allows.

"They're getting paid about three times more than our registered nurses and nurse practitioners who are working in the system," Coffey said. "[It] could possibly lead to more registered nurses and nurse practitioners making the decision to leave the public system altogether."

Molloy told CBC News in response to Coffey's comments that it wasn't N.L. Health Services' intention to disappoint the union or demoralize nurses.

"The intention is actually to ensure that we have standardized rates that we're paying any agency nursing that we bring into the province, while we are working very hard towards reducing the amount of agency nursing that we have in the province."

Molloy said payment rates for agency nurses were identified through researching what other provinces pay, and then finding an appropriate rate on "the lower end of that spectrum."

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