The Registered Nurses Union says the health authority is “nickel and diming” its members while paying millions to a private company for agency nurses to work alongside its members.
RNU President Yvette Coffey was responding to a recent Globe and Mail article that outlines in detailed fashion, the degree to which the province is relying on the use of travel agency nurses, hired through a private company.
She used as an example a recent issue raised during collective bargaining. She says if a member is sick just one day in a two-week pay period, then that member will not get the permanent full-time incentive negotiated in the collective agreement. “So they’re looking at that,” says Coffey referencing her membership, “and saying I have one sick leave day, which was paid, paid sick leave, a benefit I had, and you to claw back from me, yet you paid a company $312 an hour?”
That, says Coffey, has left nurses feeling outraged and demoralized.
Coffey wants the government to ban the use of agency nurses.
“This is not an example of being fiscally responsible, and I will be very quick to remind them of that the next time we’re at the table.”
Lela Evans
The NDP is calling on the provincial government to “stop disrespecting local nurses” and redirect money handed over to a single agency back into the public health care system.
Lela Evans was responding to a Globe and Mail article which outlines the tens of millions of dollars paid to a single agency providing travel nurses to fill gaps in the province’s health care system.
Evans remarked on VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly about the money wasted instead of investing in health care.
She referenced the $1.6 million paid by government for meals for travel nurses, when the nurses interviewed by the Globe and Mail said they never received money for their meals. “Where did that $1.6 million go?” Evans asks.
Tom Osborne
That’s what Minister Tom Osborne also wants to know. He’s instructed his staff to write the health authority, which made the decisions and provided the oversite for the contract, for clarification on some of the concerns raised in the Globe and Mail article.
Osborne says a few months ago they also wrote the health authority regarding due diligence and impressed on NL Health Services the need to reduce the use of agency nurses.
He says there are two major concerns for government;
“If the letter of the contract was followed,” says Osborne, “then the concern is the amount of money being spent on agency nursing. If the letter of the contract was not followed, you’re into a completely difference scenario…so we need clarification from the provincial health authority.”
