![Ghosts of Atcon affair haunt debate over travel-nurse contracts](https://i.cbc.ca/1.984056.1717620253!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/hi-nb-atcon-truck-852.jpg)
Ghosts of Atcon affair haunt debate over travel-nurse contracts
CBC
Maybe it was inevitable that within 24 hours of a report into what one MLA called "one of the worst economic scandals in the history of New Brunswick," politicians invoked another of the worst-ever scandals.
It was Liberal MLA Robert Gauvin who labelled the travel-nurse controversy as "one of the worst" — and Health Minister Bruce Fitch who promptly tried to one-up him.
"When he talks about financial disasters — remember the Atcon scandal," Fitch said during question period Wednesday.
For a second straight day, exchanges at the legislature were dominated by the scathing report by Auditor General Paul Martin on $173 million in contracts with private sector travel-nurse companies filling staffing gaps in New Brunswick hospitals.
Martin described a litany of problems with the contracts, particularly three agreements between the Vitalité Health Network and Canadian Health Labs, that he says were inked without due diligence.
"There's some common sense missing here that went out the window. People were just pressing 'click' on the pay button," Martin said earlier this week.
Vitalité has paid Canadian Health Labs up to $300 per hour per nurse — far more than what it would cost to employ unionized nurses.
In some circumstances, the company can deploy its nurses "regardless of the actual need" and can still be paid up to $85 million during the life of its agreements, Martin said.
Vitalité has argued it urgently needed to do something to avoid closing or reducing services at some of its hospitals in 2022 — though critics say a properly funded public health-care system wouldn't need a costly private-sector backstop in the first place.
Liberals argued they were responding to an emergency, too, when they approved $70 million in loans and loan guarantees for Atcon in 2009 — potentially major job losses in Miramichi if the company shut down.
But the money didn't save Atcon.
The company went bankrupt anyway, in April 2010, and taxpayers lost almost all of the $70 million.
How exactly that ranks compared to the travel-nurses controversy is hard to measure precisely.
The Liberal premier at the time, Shawn Graham, was eventually found to be in a conflict of interest for his role in the loans because of his father's business connections to the company.