Nursing agencies are staffing hospitals at 'huge cost' to health-care system, experts say

Burned-out nurses who've left Canada's healthcare industry in droves are now returning to the job through private agencies, and that transition is costing the public system millions of dollars every year.

Nurses working for these temp agencies can earn more than double the wages of staff nurses doing the same jobs in the same hospitals, with full control over their work schedules, according to those in the industry.

Terri Stuart-McEwan, vice president of clinical programs and chief nursing executive at Oak Valley Health, which operates Markham Stouffville Hospital in Ontario, said she's watched as a steady stream of nurses have quit their jobs out of fatigue and frustration.

"Last year we spent, in this organization, over $4 million [on agency nurses], and we are a medium-size organization," she said. "That's a huge cost to our health-care system."

Long-time nurses say those costs are just going to keep rising unless something is done to address systemic issues in the Canadian health-care system that are driving workers to leave their jobs.

In the meantime, the agency industry is flourishing. Stuart-McEwan said she now has contracts with 13 nursing agencies, compared to just one or two before the pandemic.

She describes these agencies as the Ubers of nursing, and just like ride-hailing companies, some agencies have implemented surge pricing that see costs spike during certain times.

"It would be a Saturday night, we're down by a couple of nurses, it's in the critical care area — we know we cannot survive without another nurse," Stuart-McEwan said.

"As an organization, you're saying I could either put my patients at risk, my staff at risk, or I pay $300 an hour."

Those hourly rates can add up quickly.

In Toronto, University Health Network's nursing agency expenditures totalled $6.74 million in the fiscal year ending in 2022, a sharp increase from the $775,926 it spent in 2021.

Manitoba spent $3.9 million in one year to fill shortages in Winnipeg alone, according to the provincial NDP, and Global News has reported that the cost provincewide was more than $40 million in 2021/2022.

And in Nova Scotia, the Department of Seniors and Long-term Care allocated $3.1 million in December 2021 for agency nurses, but later had to increase the budgeted amount for that year by $18.4 million.

In Quebec, private health-care staffing agencies cost taxpayers $960 million last year, and the province has spent about $3 billion on these agencies since 2016.