NL Health Services has outlined its plan to reduce the number of agency nurses used in the health care system.
They hope to reduce the use of agency nurses to pre-pandemic levels by April 2026.
Currently, they say 340 agency nurses are being used across the province. The goal is to reduce that to 60 in two years’ time.
The health authority says recruitment and retention measures taken to-date have already yielded some results—there has been an 11.4 per cent reduction in the number of private agency health care staff used in the system since February, and that reduction should rise to 30 percent by the end of the year.
***𝗡𝗘𝗪𝗦 𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘***
𝗡𝗟 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵-𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳
FULL DETAILS: https://t.co/wxqi9vwAj9 pic.twitter.com/8sM9EPPbhS
— NL Health Services (@NL_HealthServ) May 2, 2024
NLHS highlights several initiatives being used to reduce agency nurse numbers. They include hiring the maximum number of nursing graduates, encouraging casual nurses to take full time employment, providing childcare, career development and workplace safety initiatives, international recruitment efforts, incentives, reviewing more cost-effective contractual options, guidelines to ensure consistent use of private staff, and working with unions on opportunities for current nurses to assist in hard-to-fill areas—such as locums in Labrador.
Private health care agencies were brought in to address staffing shortages during the pandemic response.
The Globe and Mail revealed through access to information that the province forked out about $35 million dollars to a private company for travel nurses over a five month period.