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Private nursing agencies are have grown in number and use amid the crises facing the healthcare sector by filling the gaps in chronic understaffing. The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions’ new report Opening the black box: Unpacking the use of nursing agencies in Canada reveals just how much this reliance on nursing agencies has cost. Dr. Joan Almost, Professor of Nursing at Queen’s University and author of the CFNU report spoke with the Perspectives Journal Podcast about how, in the end, private nursing agencies were at most a band-aid solution to a systemic issue.
The CFNU report offers clear recommendations to help mitigate this growing cost, and encroaching privatization, in the healthcare sector. For instance, to help address staffing irregularities, especially in rural and remote communities, provincial governments could create public nursing agencies that help to fill in these gaps, instead of relying on private nursing agencies. Professor Almost points to Manitoba and British Columbia, where provincial governments have created similar agencies to ease off their reliance on private nursing agencies. These private agencies have also lacked transparency, leading to Professor Almost’s challenges in compiling the data for this report. Ensuring immediate oversight and regulation of these agencies will be critical to prevent them from ballooning costs on our public health care systems.
Professor Almost offers a guide to fixing the nursing problem on this episode of the Perspectives Journal Podcast.
Notes:
- REPORT – Opening the black box: Unpacking the use of nursing agencies in Canada, by Dr. Joan Almost, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, September 2024.
- REPORT – Nursing Retention Toolkit: Improving the Working Lives of Nurses in Canada Health Canada, March 2024.
- “Public system spent at least $1.5-billion on private nurses last year, study finds” by Kelly Grant, The Globe and Mail, 23 September 2024.
- NOVA SCOTIA – “Province, union working toward travel nurse program” by Michael Gorman, CBC, 1 October 2024.
