The Ontario Liberals are asking the auditor general to investigate the use of temporary nursing agencies in the provincial health-care system.
In the request for a value-for-money audit, sent on Thursday, Health Critic Adil Shamji says that hospital executives and health-care workers have been sounding the alarm.
“Given the enormous pressure being experienced across our health-care system and profound financial challenges reported by many institutions, an audit of the scandalous lack of oversight and mismanagement in this sector could not be more important,” Shamji wrote in the letter.
The request comes one day after Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced an expansion of private clinics who can perform surgeries(opens in a new tab) covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). Experts have long said that without strict guidelines, the government’s plans to reduce the province’s surgical backlog will leave hospitals with a serious human resources challenge.
Back in January 2023, when the Doug Ford government first released a three-step plan that would see private health-care clinics be given more responsibility,” Doug Angus, a University of Ottawa professor with a specialization in healthcare economics, noted that hospitals will be left in a “more difficult bind than they currently are in.”
“The idea is good, but there’s still a tremendous lack of human resources to be able to sort of pull this one off,” he said.
He and other experts suggested the public system could see a mass exodus of staff interested in working at private clinics, where they can potentially get better pay and benefits.
A year later and hospitals, as well as the province’s auditor general, are yet again sounding the alarm.
A December report (opens in a new tab)found that staffing shortages are contributing to emergency department closures.
At the time, Acting Auditor General Nick Stavropoulos said the government had no central plan to help hospitals maintain nurse staffing levels to avoid ER closures.
“A province-wide strategy to help hospitals and long term care homes maintain appropriate staffing levels is critical for the sector’s success moving forward.”
Stavropoulos said that hospitals are becoming more reliant on nursing agencies to fill the gaps and that this is coming at a higher cost.
For example, he noted that nurses at private, for-profit nursing agencies can get paid more than $75 an hour compared to the $35 to $50 per hour that full-time hospital nurses make.
There is currently no legislation that caps the amount for-profit staffing agencies can charge hospitals.
