Concerns a 'vicious cycle' underway as private companies increasingly staffing B.C. hospitals

As B.C.’s hospitals are faltering under the burden of staff resignations and illness, sources say private companies are quietly filling the gaps with growing numbers of well-compensated nurses – with an unclear price tag.

As B.C.’s hospitals are faltering under the burden of staff resignations and illness, sources say private companies are quietly filling the gaps with growing numbers of well-compensated nurses – with an unclear price tag. 

The BC Nurses’ Union has confirmed their members are reporting what frontline staff have been telling CTV News for months: so-called “travelling nurses” employed by private agencies are increasingly contracted by health authorities to staff hospitals plagued by departmental closures and long wait times.

Neither the province’s health authorities nor the Ministry of Health publicizes the costs or contracts for those agencies, meaning very few people have any idea how much it’s costing to employ nurses walking away from unionized staff jobs for increased pay, better working conditions and sometimes even thousands in retention bonuses.

“It's no wonder nurses are electing to take these private contract jobs because they have control over their lives, they can accept or decline what work they want,” said Adriane Gear, BCNU vice president.

“Its very critical and we've never seen it this dire so of course any nurse coming in is absolutely appreciated but what we're seeing now is on some nurses there's more agency nurses than regular staff.”

Gear said agency nurses typically make 50 to 100 per cent more than staff nurses, plus meals and living expenses, which are holdovers from when the national corps of travelling nurses would go and live in small towns for weeks or months at a time filling temporary vacancies at hospitals.

She added that the full-time staff nurses are also increasingly stressed and burnt out trying to orient new coworkers to their facilities while doing their own jobs, but are often sent to unfamiliar hospitals themselves since agency staff only work at the same facility for the duration of their contract, which “is really adding to the destabilization of the current baseline staffing.”