More meetings are planned between government and the Registered Nurses’ Union (RNU) as they try to find a way forward in providing health care without the over-reliance on travel nurses.
RNU President Yvette Coffey met with Premier Andrew Furey and Health Minister Tom Osborne to make some suggestions on how to address current nursing gaps in the system.
The NL Health Services contract with Canadian Health Labs for the provision of travel nurses came to an end in the western zone at the end of February and won’t be renewed.
Meanwhile, the contract for travel nurses in the central region concludes next month, with no word on whether it will be renewed.
Coffey says the RNU wants the reliance on travel nurses to end, but says government has to put a plan in place.
“We never did say ‘just pull them out and that’s it,’ ” she said. “We know it’s going to take time, we have to transition. We’ve got to work on how we do that, and we have to work together to do that.”
Coffey made a number of suggestions to government, including extending the license fees for retired nurses, a measure brought in during the pandemic, and greater use of casual nurses.
“We do have them here in the system, looking to work some degree of hours and shifts,” she said. “They can’t work full time because of family commitments and child care issues, but they can work something. And it’s still cheaper to pay that casual nurse a whole lot less than we would an agency nurse.”
Furey, meanwhile, says he has a great working relationship with Coffey, and wanted her to hear directly from him that government is committed to ending the use of travel nurses.
Furey says it’s not just about finances, but also providing the best clinical care for patients, adding that it’s important for team members to know and trust each other in order to achieve positive patient outcomes.
The premier says he has asked for creative solutions to solve the “market dynamics” that have contributed to the problem.
“We talked about the think tank we had that led to some good outcomes, as well as the different policy decisions of this government in listening to nurses,” he said, adding he hopes another such exercise could be held to review successes to date and into the future.
