To keep emergency rooms open, hospitals are dropping stacks on private nurses.
Driving the news: Per The Globe and Mail, Ontario hospitals are paying private nursing agencies more than quadruple the amount they paid back in the first year of the pandemic.
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At least 78 hospitals sent over $168.3 million in taxpayer funds to for-profit nursing agencies in the first nine months of last year, paying up an average of $140 an hour.
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The Globe’s Kelly Grant reported that some hospitals have even paid over $250 an hour for agency nurses, while a top-paid nurse at a hospital makes ~$49 an hour.
Catch-up: Private healthcare staffing agencies have been around for decades, providing ad hoc support in emergency situations, remote areas, or when an employee calls in sick.
- But now, burnt-out nurses are headed for the exits. Some have retired or switched to part-time, but others see better earning opportunities and flexibility within agencies.
Why it matters: Provinces are now increasingly relying on costly and for-profit healthcare to meet the day-to-day needs of their residents, from major hospitals to long-term care homes.
Yes, but: Some hospitals are taking a different approach, instead choosing to increase overtime pay for the nurses they employ or implement reduced emergency room hours.
Zoom out: Québec is passing a law to ban such agencies, and along with Ontario, Alberta, BC, and Atlantic provinces, is ramping up efforts to recruit more foreign-trained nurses.—SB