The day after CTV News first reported that British Columbia health officials had more than doubled payments to for-profit recruitment agencies, anger is growing that taxpayer money is being funneled to a “parasitic industry.”
After months of follow-up emails and requests, the Ministry of Health finally provided updated figures on how much B.C. health authorities have paid agencies to provide nurses to hospitals, long-term care homes and other public facilities: $163 million for 2022-23, up from $76.7 million the previous year.
“It's quite frankly shameful that the Ministry of Health and health officials have tried to hide these details from the public,” said Camille Currie, co-founder of the advocacy group BC Healthcare Matters. “What we're witnessing is a public system pushing workers towards privatization.”
The BC Nurses Union is concerned by the latest figures, as they expect an increase in the misappropriation of public funds.
“Too much taxpayer money is being spent on privatised nursing services, but that taxpayer money could be better spent on improving working conditions for nurses and care conditions for patients,” said BCNU president Adrienne Gear.
She also noted that nurses are frustrated at routinely working with far fewer staff than is safe and necessary to provide quality care, and that forced overtime, denial of leave requests and pressure to work even longer hours are driving many nurses out of the overburdened public sector.
“Nurses can no longer continue to work in places where there are five nurses when there should be 10,” said Gear. “They can do one or two shifts, but it's becoming the norm and nurses are burning out.”
Ignore warnings
Academics, frontline workers and unions have all warned state governments to curb the use of recruitment agencies, citing a “vicious cycle” of nurses moving to third-party employers who pay higher wages, travel, accommodation and per diem fees, and allow nurses to choose their work schedules and locations.
One of them is Andrew Longhurst, a health policy researcher at SFU, who noted that staffing agencies charge a 30% markup on nurses' wages and described it as a “parasitic industry” that undermines the public system. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/bcs-health-care-crisis-first-look-at-massive-markups-by-parasitic-staffing-industry-1.6559044
“The longer we continue to rely on them, the more they overcharge for the basic staffing that public hospitals need, and the more financially unsustainable it becomes to provide public health care,” he said. “It's very inefficient, very expensive and doesn't make economic sense.”
Health officials officially silenced
Until now, health officials have been reluctant to provide data, noting that agency staffing represents only a small portion of overall nursing budgets — less than 1 percent in some cases — and is an important option for rural and remote communities with staff who want time off or need sick leave.
They also helped with contact tracing and vaccinations during the pandemic, but a mass exodus of burnt-out health care workers has shaken the system to its core, with some turning to temp agencies to gain work-life balance while still utilizing their valuable skills.
CTV News has previously spoken to senior health officials who say costly temporary staff are only called in as a last resort when full-time staff are unavailable, but the Ministry of Health is now barring them from speaking on the subject.
“At some point, the Department of Health will provide a statewide response on this issue due to the complexities of data collection,” the spokesperson wrote.
There's nothing complicated about the surge, especially when you graph the Vancouver Coastal and Northern Health Authority numbers.
Health Minister Adrian Dix spoke to CTV News before his staff provided the data, saying “contingent nursing is not something we want to have,” but his priority is keeping emergency rooms open.
