A view of the Georges L. Dumont Public Hospital in Moncton, New Brunswick, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020. Dr. France Desrosiers, head of New Brunswick's Francophone Health Network, passionately defended Vitalité's spending on travel nurse contracts. The Canadian Press/Marc Grandmaison
FREDERICTON — The head of New Brunswick's French-speaking Vitalité Health Network launched an impassioned defence Thursday of the organisation's spending on travel nurse contracts.
Dr. France Desrosiers told a legislative committee that the decision to contract with a private company to provide temporary nurses, also known as travel nurses, was a matter of “saving lives by maintaining essential services.”
The situation has worsened, with 100 beds already closed across the network by the second half of 2022, and dialysis patients only getting three hours of treatment instead of the usual four.
“The pressure was so high,” she said. “It was one minute to midnight.”
After a patient died in a Fredericton hospital emergency room in July 2022, Desrosiers said he was “commanded” to improve the situation in the francophone health network.
In a meeting with Deputy Health Minister Eric Beaulieu, she told the committee she was told she was “allowed” to hire traveling nurses to ease the burden, even if it would cost “tens of millions of dollars.” Only after this meeting, she said, did they go ahead with the contract.
The province's auditor general specifically highlighted this expenditure in a June 4 report, finding that between Jan. 1, 2022 and Feb. 29, 2024, Vitality paid more than $123 million to travel nurses, including $98 million to Canadian Health Labs, an Ontario-based organization.
The price charged by Canadian Health Labs under its contract with Vitalité, which runs until February 2026, was described as “exorbitant” by Health Minister Bruce Fitch.
The contract can be extended beyond February 2026 if certain language targets are met. Desrosiers said the network had little choice but to contract with Canadian Health Labs because the company had a “monopoly” on bilingual staff.
“That made it nearly impossible to negotiate better terms,” she said.
Vitalite deputy chief executive Patrick Parent said the health network presented nine options to the government in autumn 2022, including a retention allowance, payment of unused sick leave and benefits for nurses who choose to stay despite being close to retirement age.
Those options, which would have cost the government much less, were rejected, leaving the network with no choice but to pay for traveling nurses, he told reporters between testimony before the committee.
Greens MP Megan Mitton said she didn't believe Parliament had “fully reined in” the government's spending on agency nurses.
Liberal provincial councillor Keith Chiasson said Vitalite was left with little choice but to hire travelling nurses. He said he wanted to question Beaulieu after Desrosiers said Beaulieu had approved the contract with a private nurse.
“I would certainly like to question him again, why.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 20, 2024.
Hina Alam, The Canadian Press
