Why some worry about the rise of private agency health-care staffing firms in Canada

There were more than 41,955 job postings across Canada for nurses in the first quarter of 2023, missing manpower that is affecting hospital staffing, closing rural ERs and fuelling the expansion of companies that supply temporary nurses. The trend is triggering worry that it is slowly privatizing the backbone of health services — nursing care — with an urgent call for more scrutiny.

There were more than 41,955 job postings across Canada for nurses in the first quarter of 2023, missing manpower that is affecting hospital staffing, closing rural ERs and fuelling the expansion of companies that supply temporary nurses.

The trend is triggering worry that it is slowly privatizing the backbone of health services — nursing care — with an urgent call for more scrutiny.

"We don't really know what's happening across the country," said Joan Almost, a professor in the faculty of nursing at Queens University in Kingston.

"I'd like to know how much they're actually charging organizations. How do they decide on that? And how many have jumped on the bandwagon to go into hospitals now that weren't in there before?" she said.

Almost is in the midst of a study, sponsored in part by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, to study the exponential use of agency nurses and the companies behind them. They supply nurses and other medical staff to hospitals. But the hourly fee is two to three times higher than the hourly rate for a staff RN. Nurses may also receive travel and rent costs. There are also "finder" fees for the agency, for procuring and scheduling urgently needed health-care workers.

Canadian taxpayers are funding it all, says Almost.

"That's very concerning that taxpayers' money is going towards a profit for some other agency.”