The province’s registered nurses’ union is reacting with shock after learning that contracts with private agencies prevent nurses from returning to the public sector for up to a year.
RNUNL president Yvette Coffey says the union was alerted to the situation by a nurse who was told his contract prevents him from returning to the public system in this province for up to 12 months, or the health authority could be fined.
Coffey says she was called to a meeting with officials from Central Health and the Department of Health when the first travel agency contract was signed.
She says at the time travel nurses were used to ease pressure on an understaffed and overburdened system, and to allow public sector nurses to get vacations that had been deferred for two years.
Coffey says she was assured there was a clause in the contract preventing agencies from poaching nurses or new graduates from the public sector.
“At no point in time did anybody ever tell us that these agency nurses could not be (re-hired for up to a year) in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador into our publicly-funded health care system,” she said.