NDP Health Critic Vicki Mowat said there should be greater transparency around the use of contract nurses. (Daniel Reech/980 CJME)

By CJME News

Cost of travel nurses is ballooning in Saskatchewan, NDP says

Mar 14, 2024 | 6:30 AM

The Opposition NDP says Saskatchewan’s reliance on contract nurses is getting “quite costly,” which the NDP says is another sign of a failing health-care system.

On Wednesday, NDP Health Critic Vicki Mowat told reporters the government should focus on building its capacity instead of relying on contract nurses.

“It’s easy to understand how a contract nurse would be a quick fix, but they need to do the work to develop real recruiting and retention strategies for nurses across the province,” she said.

Mowat added it was understandable how contract nursing agencies could be helpful, especially in situations where service isn’t available or where it’s difficult to recruit, but it should not be a long-term solution.

“We hear about some morale concerns from full-time employees of the (Saskatchewan Health Authority) saying things like, ‘This person who is working alongside me who is doing the same work as me is getting paid three times as much as me,’ ” Mowat said.

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She also questioned the province’s transparency in disclosing how many distinct contracts there are, how many hours have been worked and which communities are most affected.

In April 2023, then-Health Minister Paul Merriman said 157 travel nurses were operating in rural or northern communities.

According to the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN), the province is on track to spend more than $70 million this year alone on private agency nurses.

Mowat said the NDP was able to discover that the province spent $1,441,544 on those nurses for 2020-21, $9,875,249 for 2021-22 and $25,305,214 for 2022-23.

The NDP says it found this information on private agency nurses in SHA annual reports. (Saskatchewan NDP)

Mowat said it should be up to the provincial government to figure out a plan to cut down on the reliance on contract nurses and to also figure out a targeted recruiting plan.

“People care about how their public dollars are being spent, ultimately, they care about how their taxpayer dollars are being spent and they want to make sure that there are good jobs in health care as well,” Mowat said.

On Wednesday, Health Minister Everett Hindley said the province is working hard to ensure it does more to create full-time positions and fill existing vacancies.

He says the use of contract nurses is necessary to keep facilities open and fill shifts as a short-term solution.

“We want to work closely with our partners to see what we can do to reduce that reliance on contract nurses and make sure that we are hiring, on a permanent full-time basis, more nurses into our facilities,” Hindley said.

Hindley said the province hasn’t established any timelines in terms of reducing the reliance on contract nurses as of yet but it’s something that the ministry is in talks with alongside the SHA and the Saskatchewan Health Recruitment Agency.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities recently raised concerns about shortages of health-care workers in the province, a cry that echoed those from SUN and other organizations.

The provincial government is trying to recruit 1,000 health-care workers to the system through the Health Human Resources Action Plan, which was launched last September. It also has created incentives to get health-care professionals into rural areas, including the Rural and Remote Recruitment Incentive.