Health care in Canada is at a crossroads. The recent rise of for-profit nursing agencies is exacerbating staffing shortages rather than solving them. These agencies charge exorbitant rates, drain public funds and create a system where health care delivery is driven by profit margins, not patient needs.
For-profit health care staffing agencies charge up to six times the hourly rate of a regular nurse, pushing health care budgets to the brink. While a private nurse staffing agencies can charge up to $300 per hour, a full-time publicly employed nurse typically earns between $27 to $54 per hour.
The reliance on for-profit agencies undermines the principles of Canada’s public health care system, threatening its sustainability and quality. With operations shrouded in secrecy, for-profit staffing agencies operate with minimal transparency, making it difficult to track the effectiveness of funds spent.
For-profit health care staffing agencies offer a temporary band-aid, not a solution, shifting nurses around without addressing the root causes of nurse staffing shortages.
Health care is a right, not a commodity. It’s time to voice our opposition to the privatization of health care staffing in Canada. Your MP and provincial minister of health needs to hear from you. Click below to send a message expressing your concern about for-profit nursing agencies and demanding investment in a public health care system that serves all people in Canada equitably. Together, we can ensure that our health care system prioritizes care over profit.
See the latest stories on for-profit, staffing agencies draining our public health care system.
During the pandemic, governments turned to private firms who sent staff from across the country at higher hourly rates. A Globe investigation focusing on one such nursing agency shows those weren’t the only costs borne by taxpayers
The high costs charged by private nursing agencies threaten the public health care system and need to be investigated by Canada’s auditors-general, union leaders say.
Newfoundland and Labrador's Health Minister Tom Osborne said more clarity is needed from the province’s health authority
New Brunswick deputy minister of health told a committee that travel nurses should be eliminated from Horizon Health hospitals.
Sustaining Nursing in Canada proposes a set of concrete actionable solutions to help meaningfully solve the health care staffing crisis.
This report details how governments’ poor planning and failure to address the systemic challenges facing nurses created today’s crisis and the impact on nurses, patients and the health system.
Nurses are at the heart of the solutions recommended in this report:
