Province inked $1.3M contract with travel health-care worker agency

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New Brunswick’s Department of Social Development inked a $1.3-million contract back in 2022 with Canadian Health Labs (CHL), a Toronto-based company that has found itself in the crosshairs over the province’s ongoing use of travel health-care workers.

Auditor general Paul Martin is now examining the government’s management of travel nurse contracts following a recent Globe and Mail investigation into the use of these health-care workers during the pandemic in 2022.

As a result of that investigation, Vitalité Health Network has been in the hot seat over the signing of $158 million worth of contracts with CHL. Deputy Health Minister Eric Beaulieu recently claimed his department wasn’t immediately aware of Vitalité signing two of the three CHL contracts.

But the Department of Social Development also signed its own contracts with two travel health-care worker agencies – including CHL – in 2022, Brunswick News has learned.

A four-month, $1.3-million contract was inked with CHL, while a five-month, $165,000 contract was signed with staffing firm Plan A to assist the province’s nursing homes during the fifth wave of the pandemic, according to the Department of Social Development.

“These short-term contracts were in place to aid in the province’s overall COVID-19 pandemic response and are not standard practice for the department,” Social Development spokesperson Kate Wright said in an email.

The department wouldn’t provide copies of the contracts to Brunswick News nor explain the price difference between the CHL and Plan A contracts. It also wouldn’t provide the exact months the contracts were in effect for during 2022.

“It should be completely transparent,” said Green Leader David Coon, who is also social development critic for his party.

“There’s no reason at all for the government to be less than transparent with contracts they signed with these companies to provide nursing services – if there was a strong rationale and there certainly was during the bad waves of COVID – to see whether we got value for money.”

In the wake of the Globe and Mail investigation, Premier Blaine Higgs, who called for an audit, said he was unaware of the details of the province’s travel nurse contracts and didn’t know how much was being paid out until recently.

Neither Coon nor Liberal health critic Rob McKee buys this version of events.

“I don’t believe for one second that these contracts went unnoticed by this current government or the current premier who is known for micromanaging,” McKee said.

“For them to say they had no knowledge of some of those contracts I simply don’t believe.”

Horizon Health Network has its own travel nurse contracts, but its use of these workers is expected to end this spring. Meanwhile, Vitalité’s current $93-million travel nurse contract with CHL doesn’t expire until February 2026.

That contract has an hourly rate of more than $300 per nurse – six times the hourly rate received by local nurses.

CHL has defended its contracts, stating rates and services are “tailored to meet each jurisdiction’s significant local needs and reflect the extraordinary logistical challenges of getting and keeping health-care professionals in rural, remote and underserved communities.”

Travel health workers still in nursing homes: union

Travel health-care workers are still being used in the province’s long-term care sector, according to Sharon Teare, president of the New Brunswick Council of Nursing Home Unions, which represents more than 4,000 workers in the province’s nursing homes.

Teare says she’s aware of both CHL and Plan A staff still working in some of the province’s privately operated nursing homes. She’s been searching for answers about the details of these arrangements.

Any contracts would be between the individual nursing home and the travel health agency, according to Julie Weir, CEO of the New Brunswick Association of Nursing Homes.

“There are a few homes who use the travel staff during times of critical staffing,” she said in an email. “Those decisions are taken on a home-by-home basis rather than from the entire province.”

The auditor general’s investigation into the travel worker contracts will include the Department of Social Development, along with the two regional health authorities and the province’s health department. Martin recently confirmed his office will examine all staffing categories – not just travel nurses – contained in the travel health agency contracts.

McKee doesn’t dispute that travel health-care workers are needed during emergencies, but he says they continue to be employed in the province, demonstrating the Progressive Conservative government isn’t focused on recruitment and retention.

“(These Social Development contracts) raise the same concerns that we had when the initial investigation came out that there was an overreliance on travel agencies to fill the gaps when our own government is neglecting to take care of our own workers whether it be in health care or nursing homes,” McKee said.

The Tories continue to face heat from opposition parties and unions over the government’s refusal to provide retention incentives to New Brunswick health-care workers.

In her estimation, Teare says if the government had focused on recruiting and retaining new nursing home staff prior to the pandemic, it wouldn’t have had to rely on outside help.

“I find that very insulting that the investment is going into a staffing agency as opposed to investing in the retention and recruitment of staff.”