Latest news with #staffingagencies
CBC
13-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
Ontario hospitals spent $9.2B on private agency nurses and staff, report finds
A new report shows Ontario hospitals spent $9.2 billion on private, for-profit nursing and staffing agencies over the past decade, a figure that doubled between 2013 and 2023. Critics of private agencies urge Ontario to phase them out, calling them a 'band-aid on a gaping wound.'
National Post
12-05-2025
- Health
- National Post
New Study Reveals Ontario Spent $9.2 Billion on For-Profit Staffing Agencies Over 10 Years, Blames Crisis on Underinvestment in Hospitals and Preventative Health Care
Article content Article content TORONTO — A new research report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recommends Ontario make significant increases in hospital funding while phasing out costly for-profit staffing agencies and making investments in preventative health care. Article content The report Hollowed Out: Ontario public hospitals and the rise of private staffing agencies shows a co-relation between the dramatic growth in agency usage and underfunding of public hospitals over the last decade. Article content Between 2013-14 and 2022-23, Ontario's hospitals paid out $9.2 billion to for-profit staffing agencies that cost up to three times more than employing in-house hospital workers. Article content Agency workers consumed six per cent of total hospital labour costs despite only accounting for 0.4 per cent of all frontline hours. Over the 10-year period in question, hospitals doubled their spending on staffing agencies while their costs on employed staff rose by merely six per cent. Article content 'The use of for-profit staffing agencies is part of a vicious cycle that hollows out the public sector workforce, thereby increasing hospitals' dependence on private agencies,' said Andrew Longhurst, research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of the report. 'The government must take a range of measures to resolve this crisis, but central to that is increasing hospital funding. The wasteful public spending on private agencies would have never emerged as a problem if Ontario's investments in employed hospital staff kept up with patient needs.' Article content The report notes that Ontario's per-capita funding for hospitals is the lowest across Canada. In the period between 2013 and 2022, the Ontario government made real dollar spending cuts in seven out of 10 years, contributing to insufficient growth in staff relative to demand. Article content The increasingly heavier workloads combined with real dollar wage cuts fueled a 330 per cent increase in job vacancies since 2015. During this period, hospital staff incomes declined by 13 per cent. Article content The staffing crisis has precipitated a decline in access to care, according to the report, as evidenced by frequent ER closures and long wait-times. Article content 'Saving our hospital services requires an investment in the staff who deliver them,' said Michael Hurley, the president of CUPE's Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE). 'The government must commit to staffing standards including nurse-to-patient ratios to ensure manageable workloads, which would allow staff to provide care to the best of their abilities, improve morale and retention, and help stabilize the system.' Article content But the system is instead fracturing due to a combination of rising demand, ballooning agency costs, and provincial underfunding, said Longhurst. As a result, nearly half of hospitals faced a budget deficit in 2023-24 with a majority expected to be in arrears this year. Budgetary issues disproportionately impact small and Northern Ontario hospitals. Article content Agency usage varies across the province but has grown in all but one of the 14 regions of Ontario since 2013. In rural and northern regions – where shortages are often most severe – agency costs jumped: they increased by 480 per cent in the North West, by 372 per cent in North Simcoe Muskoka, and by 216 per cent in the North East. Article content Longhurst recommended that Ontario follow the example of British Columbia and create a public sector staffing agency that provides relief to the most beleaguered hospitals, while phasing out private agencies over three years. Article content Other prescriptions to address the crisis include the development of a health care staffing strategy, and investments in hospital services ($2 billion annual increase) as well as primary and community care. Article content 'We can't afford to underfund much-needed hospital care even as other services are also required,' he said. 'We can have better primary and community care and well-funded hospitals to meet the health care needs of Ontario's residents.' Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content
CBC
12-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
Rise in for-profit agency nurse costs in Ontario hospitals 'exorbitant,' says researcher
Social Sharing Ontario hospitals paid for-profit staffing agencies $9.2 billion over a decade, a finding that comes as one hospital aims to stop its use of temp services by September. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives commissioned Monday's report, titled Hollowed Out: Ontario Public Hospitals and the Rise of Private Staffing Agencies. It focused on increased spending on the agencies for nurses, allied health professionals and administrative support staff from 2013-14 to 2022-23. Hospitals and long-term care homes turn to staffing agencies when they can't fill all of their shifts with employees. Temporary agency health-care workers allow them to continue providing services during staff shortages, although they charge up to triple the regularly hour rate, hospitals have said. Real spending on agencies nearly doubled, from $21 per capita to $41 over the study period, according to Andrew Longhurst, a political economist at Simon Fraser University, and the report's author. In comparison, public hospital employed staff increased from $604 per capita to $641 over the same time in the province. "What we're seeing across the board with the use of private for profit providers is the public governments are paying an exorbitant amount and getting relatively little in return," Longhurst said. Longhurst says provincial fiscal austerity destabilizes hospitals just as population growth and aging put more pressure on hospital staffing, which exacerbates hallway medicine and the long wait times patients face at emergency departments or for scheduled surgeries. Using private agencies becomes a "vicious cycle," according to the report, as hospitals become dependent on these more expensive services while the staffing crisis in the public sector increases. Working to be 'agency free' Meanwhile, at Markham Stouffville Hospital, staff are working to reduce reliance on private agencies that provide temporary hires such as nurses to fill shifts in the emergency department, oncology and other units. "Our goal is that by the end of September we'll be agency free," said Mark Fam, president and CEO of Oak Valley Health, which includes the Markham hospital that serves a fast growing region northeast of Toronto. "We've been able to reduce our agency nursing by two thirds." To get there, Oak Valley provided newly graduated and internationally educated nurses with extra training and support from seasoned nurses, created a nursing resource team who work across different units, hosted an open house and increased hiring. The provincial government funds the training for new nursing graduates and internationally educated nurses, Fam said. Under the Ontario government's Nursing Graduate Guarantee program, employers receive 20 weeks of funding to support new graduate nurses and internationally educated nurses transition into full-time practice. The program has hired more than 3,300 nurses since 2020, according to the province. Nurses working for temp agencies, meanwhile, say they 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. Vickie Idowu, interim manager for the resource team and staffing office, said the hospital provides extensive orientation to its nurses, so that they more effectively integrate into the workflow — a key distinction from temp workers. WATCH | Struggle to bring internationally educated nurses to Canada: How 2 nurses overcame an immigration nightmare to get to Canada 1 year ago Duration 4:38 "They get to know what's happening on the unit, so when they're ready to go and start working, they're well prepared," she said. "And what actually will make them different from using the agency is that these are our staff." Idowu said having their own staff helps provide continuity of care compared with agency folks who may only see a patient once a week. "They're familiar faces and patients are more comfortable with them." How Ontario compares to other provinces Longhurst said compared with big cities, hospital budgets were particularly strained in smaller and northern areas of Ontario, where hospitals have revenues under $100 million and reliance on for-profit agencies is higher. In 2022-23, private agency costs consumed a larger share of staffing expenditures, especially in Ontario's North West (17 per cent) and North East (11 per cent), according to the report. That's up from 2013-14, when private agency costs as a share of total labour costs were below six per cent in all Ontario health regions. Ontario had the lowest per capita hospital spending in Canada at $1,805, behind B.C. ($1,902) and Quebec ($2,028) in 2022, according to the report. "I think longer term if we continue down this road, we're going to see our publicly funded health care systems across the country struggling to deliver care in a cost effective way that actually meets the needs of patients," Longhurst said. Elsewhere across Canada, Quebec passed a law to phase out the use private placement agencies by 2026, which is being challenged in court. Similarly, New Brunswick introduced legislation that would cancel a travel nurse contract, and the company is suing over alleged breaches of contract .British Columbia also plans to phase out use of the agencies.
