Premier John Hogan has broken his silence on the damning Auditor General Report into agency nurse contracts.

Some, including the Registered Nurses Union, questioned what they called “silence” from the premier and his office on the report.

When asked about that criticism, Hogan noted that health minister Krista Lynn Howell did respond “immediately,” and that she has his full confidence in speaking to the province about it.

On the report itself, Hogan says it is “troubling” to hear what came out of it.

He believes there are two issues at play. First is the need for the province to reduce its reliance on agency nurses.

Hogan says government supports the health authority’s strategy to do that, but it is important for people to recognize that there was a need for agency nurses to help deliver health care, especially in rural and remote areas.

The second issue, says the premier, is the payments that were being made to travel nurses.

“It’s unacceptable for any entity of this province, and the government included, to be paying things that aren’t in line with what is needed to be paid out. We need to continue to further look at that, and anyone that did something in error or improper or didn’t follow a policy or procedure, we certainly need to look at that and hold that person to account. So I don’t want to conflate the issues. We are, as I said, trying to support NLHS in decreasing their reliance on agency nurses, but our mandate, and their mandate, of course, is always to provide the best possible health care to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, but we need to do it making sure that every dollar that’s spent on health care in this province goes towards health care.”